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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Friday, 1 September 1905
On the 1st September I renewed the assault with the four men left me, and after a good deal of trouble, Reymond [Charles-Adolphe Reymond], Pache [Alexis Pache], and Salama got up the worst of the ice slopes. Again disregarding the instructions I had given, they went on with the rope out of sight and call, so that I was left sitting four hours on the slope, unable to get my three loaded men either up or down. The Doctor [Jules Jacot Guillarmod] and De Righi [Alcesti de Righi] arrived at Camp V, the latter full of petty personal pique, and not in the least ashamed of his failure to supply our camp with food; on the contrary, resolved to desert us, though, in the generosity of his heart, he actually offered to leave us our servants! I descended to Camp V, having with great difficulty induced the Doctor to send up a rope and a man to help down my poor coolies.
On the safe arrival of all at camp—it was later in the day, about 5 o’clock—I especially warned De Righi and Pache, neither of whom knew anything about mountains, of the folly of attempting to descend to Camp III at that time with the Doctor, who, I assured them, at the best to be benighted on the mountain. But the Doctor was in great form, and insisted on taking down every man, except Salama and my personal servant, Bahadar Singh, thus leaving me perfectly helpless. My last words to him were that I should descend in the morning en route for Darjeeling, and to Pache that I hoped I should see again, but did not expect to. Ignorant or careless of the commonest precautions for securing the safety of the men, they started off, and I turned into my tent with the gloomiest anticipations—justified in half an hour by frantic cries for help and a shout from below that all save the Doctor and De Righi had fallen and were dead.
Reymond hastily set out to render what help he could, though it was perfectly out of the question to render effective aid. Had the Doctor possessed the common humanity or common sense to leave me a proper complement of men at Camp V instead of doing his utmost to destroy my influence, I should have been in a position to send help. As it was, I could do nothing more than send out Reymond on the forlorn hope. Not that I was over-anxious in the circumstances to render help. A mountain “accident” of the sort is one of the things for which I have no sympathy whatever.
It was night, and the finest and loveliest sunset I had ever seen in these parts; the tiny pale crescent of Astait glimmering over the mighty twin peak of Jannu,[1] the clouds lying over the low highlands of Nepal, while the mighty masses of ice and rock behind me, lit by the last reflection of the day, stood up reproachfully, like lovers, detached as if they knew that I could do no more.
Tomorrow I hope to go down and find out how things stand; but in no case shall I consent to continue a journey in which the most necessary orders are construed as brutal tyrannies, and in which the lives of the men as dear to me as my own are wantonly sacrificed to stupidity, obstinacy, and ignorance.
1—More probably this great peak is unnamed, Jannu lying further to the S.W.
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