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Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod Diary Entry Friday, 11 August 1905
The next morning we go looking for them and we find the charges ripped open, but the men have disappeared. The fourth stage is taken at a run by the avant-garde who is eager to take shelter in the best Dak-Bungalow in the chain. This unusual zeal is also due to the fact that we had promised a pack of cigarettes to the first ten to arrive, and the fight is hot. An American company had given us 10,000 cigarettes as an advertisement. In order to sort out our best porters, we had imagined rewarding those who arrived first at the stage in turn and we only had to praise ourselves for this little trick. Unfortunately, a whole category of coolies had immediately given up on competing: if, at noon, about twenty charges were deposited at Phalut, at six in the evening the last had barely arrived, when, since the beginning of the trip, we finally had a little clearing over the mountains towards which we were heading. De Righi [Alcesti de Righi], who has stayed behind, looking for yesterday's fugitives, joins us, but brings us the bad news that he has again found several abandoned charges along the way. This is the repetition of the previous days, but aggravated by the fact that we are entering a deserted country, where the carriers can no longer replace each other. We learn at the same time that the 130 government coolies sent in advance to Jongri with food for the porters who will stay with us on the glacier, have not reached this place. De Righi offers to go ahead, in search of them, and will make them follow the same path as us, a day in advance.
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