NARSAN PATTI ROCKSHELTER

Histoire

EXPLORATION HISTORY: 1855.05.31 - 1855.06.01: Adolph Schlagintweit … had to promise not only additional pay, but a rich offering to Nanda Devi in order to persuade thirty of the strongest people in the Dhanpur district to go with him. He took the further precaution of providing each of them with a piece of green gauze as a protection against the glare. An old man, the sole survivor of the hundred people who had accompanied Traill [note 3], acted as guide. On the night of May 30 the party slept in the open at a height of 14,180 feet [4322 m], and started at 1.30 a.m. It was not practicable to follow the main valley, and they had to go up a side glacier, and cross from it on to the upper névé of the Pindari glacier [note 4] over a col (17,770 feet [5416 m], the highest point attained), which he reached at eight o'clock. Here he commenced to make observations, but was disagreeably interrupted by three of his hardiest men in rapid succession being seized with epileptic fits. They threw hemselves on the snow, rolled their eyes, struck about with hands and feet, and gave every indication of being out of their senses. A cry rose up that Nanda Devi had entered into them, and Adolph, fearful lest the seizure might spread further, took aside two Brahmins whom he had with him, and after pointing out that he had given Nanda Devi all that they had demanded, and that this unpleasant scene was only the result of their own folly in calling on Nanda Devi at every difficult place on the way up, ordered them, under threats of severe punishment at Almora, to put a stop to it at once. This they achieved, partly by prayers, and partly by putting snow on the heads of the sufferers, the latter remedy being in Adolph's opinion the more effective of the two. Descending by the 'Loan' (Lwanl) glacier, he camped under a big overhanging rock at Narspan Patti, and next day joined his brother Robert at Milam [N30°26': E080°09'] (MUMM 1909: 21-22 edited 2010: 16-17). Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018