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Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod Diary Entry Tuesday, 19 September 1905
The pace having been doubled, we arrive early at Chakong, the last of the dak-bungalows where we will spend one more night of cabins, before finding the good beds of Darjeeling. Friends have sent us a special mail loaded with a quantity of letters and messages from Europe, affectionate or flattering; nobody doubts that we have reached the top of the Kangchinjunga; it is a concert of praise which turns the knife in the wound, all the more cruelly as to the memory of the past days of anguish comes to be added a last vileness of Crowley. He has taken advantage of the lead he has taken over us, deserting the expedition, to publish in the Darjeeling newspapers a tale full of malicious innuendoes and slander, to which it is a question of quickly cutting off the wings. De Righi [Alcesti de Righi] cannot stand the insult and would like to burn this last stage, travelling all night long, to go and punish the wretch. Reymond [Charles-Adolphe Reymond] and I find it very difficult to hold him back, but we finally make him understand that the night is a good time to take advice and that, after all, newspaper articles, full of bias and easy to refute, can wait a day. Chakong is famous for his "Chotens" or tom- beau of llamas, similar to Arab marabouts. People come from far away on pilgrimage to worship the Buddhist saints who lie beneath these funeral monuments. We use our last plates to photograph them.
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