The Sherpa and the Snowman

The Expedition Arrives 151
At long last there were appearing the first traces of spring : and
what a joy to see! The weeks gone past had been brimful of
interest and excitement; but one could never escape from the
atmosphere of suspended animation. The stern, grey-brown,
snow-capped ranges, the intermittent blizzards, the pall offreezing
fog drifting down the valleys, hiding everything for days on end,
suggest inevitabihty, that the winter-deadness must last for
ever, and the warm, pulsating life of the can countryside never
come round again. Withered remnants oflast season's gentian and
rhododendron flowers belie it, but desolation is the only present
reality.
So that to come out today and see butterflies, and even
occasionally a speck of green where the earliest spring plants were
pushing up,
was to be on the threshold of a new world.
On the road to Namche, fast a becoming familiar, monotonous
plod, old Prior Nawang ofThyangboche fell in with us, stumping
along, for all his age and considerable bulk, at no mean speed. He
had only a few minutes to spare, lest he should be late for a funeral,
on the shoulder.
and greeted me with a fatherly pat
"Well, have you seen a Yeti?"
"No, we're still looking for it."
"Don't see worry, you'll it all right if you stay here long
enough."
All in our party took offtheir caps, and bent before him in turn
as he laid his hand on their heads in blessing. Even Mrs. Gyalchens
tiny infant daughter was unslung from her mother's back for the
touch of his hand.
We halted for the night in Namche, and then pushed
on to
Thammu where we a bought haunch of meat cut from an un
which had fallen down a crevice and broken its
fortunate yak
back. The transaction was watched with the utmost interest a by
raven perched on the roof; leaning forward he snatched at the
scraps of meat we threw at up him.
It had been my intention to make one of the yak-grazing
villages up the Bhote Kosi valley to the north ofThami ; but dusk
was upon us, so we called in at a hamlet to beg a night's lodging
from the owner of a small house. A good-looking, bearded man