Read Online Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
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struck the target. But when Safdar told the Gurkhas to shoot an innocent bystander scrambling along a path, they refused. Seeing this as a weakness, the Mir pressed for more money—and “some soap for his wives .”
So Younghusband picked up his chair and left. The Mir “was a poor creature ,” he wrote, “and unworthy of ruling so fine a race as the people of Hunza.” Younghusband returned to his handlers, recommended that the British seize Hunza, and in 1891, a thousand soldiers invaded under the command of Algernon Durand .
As the British colonel marched toward the kingdom, the Mir bombarded his enemy with maniacal letters. In them, Safdar promised to defend Hunza “with bullets of gold”; he considered one seized fort “more precious than the strings of our wives’ pajamas”; he threatened to hack off Durand’s head and serve it on a platter . Nonetheless, Durand kept advancing, snatched the fortress at Nilt, and seized Baltit Fort.
When Durand’s troops blasted apart the gate of the Mir’s stronghold, they stormed into empty rooms. Instead of exotic concubines, a search of the harem revealed “artificial flowers, scissors . . . tooth-powder, boxes of rouge, pots of pomade and cosmetics .” Safdar and his wives were gone, enjoying a comfortable exile in China. On Durand’s orders, the soldiers dumped Safdar’s wooden throne over the embankment, installed the Mir’s half-brother as the new ruler, and set up a garrison in the valley.
The new ruler, Mir Muhammad Nazim Khan, kept his pledge to monitor the Shimshal Pass for the British. Shimshalis turned to herding, and the surrounding kingdom of Hunza became a vacation destination. Bestselling 1930s novelist James Hilton modeled his Shangri-la after the region; pseudoscientists claimed that the local apricots helped residents live to 160; Life magazine called the kingdom “Happy Land , ” a utopia “where the ruler sows gold dust with the year’s first millet seeds, and where mothers-in-law go along on honeymoons in order to school their newlyweds in the intimate art of marriage.” During the turbulent years of Partition, the Mir was so intent on maintaining stability that he refused to take sides with India or Pakistan. He asked to join the United States. Pakistan ultimately administered the region—first called the Northern Areas, sometimes considered part of Kashmir, and now governed by elected leaders as part of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The next foreign invasion was by mountaineers. In 1953, Hermann Buhl and the Austrian Embassy sent a telegram to the Mir, asking him to recruit high-altitude porters for Buhl’s expedition to Nanga Parbat. Buhl offered to pay the men 20 rupees , or $6 a month, to carry loads.
Aspirants, many of them Shimshali, packed the Durbar, a dusty courtyard below the Mir’s Baltit Fort. Wearing a black velvet robe embroidered with gold sequins, the Mir rejected the weak and sent the strongest to a German doctor in the town of Gilgit. With a magnifying glass, the physician examined each patient’s chest, mouth, and teeth, and then “he smelled us to see how we would do in altitude,” recalled Haji Baig, one of the high-altitude porters selected for Buhl’s expedition.
With men like Haji and Amir Mehdi, the sniff test proved accurate. When Buhl struggled down from the summit with frostbitten feet, Haji and Mehdi alternated carrying him on their backs. Impressed, Buhl spread the word about his Pakistani high-altitude porters, and the Italians recruited the same men the following year for the first ascent of K2. This success established a warrior class known as the Hunza Tigers, mountaineers whose political influence grew to rival the Mir’s.
One of these Hunza Tigers, Nazir Sabir, later overthrew the Mirs’ 950-year rule. Walking to elementary school one morning on the way to Baltit, a holy man waved him down and presented the young Nazir with a pebble of rock salt. Lick this once a day until it is dissolved, the holy
So Younghusband picked up his chair and left. The Mir “was a poor creature ,” he wrote, “and unworthy of ruling so fine a race as the people of Hunza.” Younghusband returned to his handlers, recommended that the British seize Hunza, and in 1891, a thousand soldiers invaded under the command of Algernon Durand .
As the British colonel marched toward the kingdom, the Mir bombarded his enemy with maniacal letters. In them, Safdar promised to defend Hunza “with bullets of gold”; he considered one seized fort “more precious than the strings of our wives’ pajamas”; he threatened to hack off Durand’s head and serve it on a platter . Nonetheless, Durand kept advancing, snatched the fortress at Nilt, and seized Baltit Fort.
When Durand’s troops blasted apart the gate of the Mir’s stronghold, they stormed into empty rooms. Instead of exotic concubines, a search of the harem revealed “artificial flowers, scissors . . . tooth-powder, boxes of rouge, pots of pomade and cosmetics .” Safdar and his wives were gone, enjoying a comfortable exile in China. On Durand’s orders, the soldiers dumped Safdar’s wooden throne over the embankment, installed the Mir’s half-brother as the new ruler, and set up a garrison in the valley.
The new ruler, Mir Muhammad Nazim Khan, kept his pledge to monitor the Shimshal Pass for the British. Shimshalis turned to herding, and the surrounding kingdom of Hunza became a vacation destination. Bestselling 1930s novelist James Hilton modeled his Shangri-la after the region; pseudoscientists claimed that the local apricots helped residents live to 160; Life magazine called the kingdom “Happy Land , ” a utopia “where the ruler sows gold dust with the year’s first millet seeds, and where mothers-in-law go along on honeymoons in order to school their newlyweds in the intimate art of marriage.” During the turbulent years of Partition, the Mir was so intent on maintaining stability that he refused to take sides with India or Pakistan. He asked to join the United States. Pakistan ultimately administered the region—first called the Northern Areas, sometimes considered part of Kashmir, and now governed by elected leaders as part of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The next foreign invasion was by mountaineers. In 1953, Hermann Buhl and the Austrian Embassy sent a telegram to the Mir, asking him to recruit high-altitude porters for Buhl’s expedition to Nanga Parbat. Buhl offered to pay the men 20 rupees , or $6 a month, to carry loads.
Aspirants, many of them Shimshali, packed the Durbar, a dusty courtyard below the Mir’s Baltit Fort. Wearing a black velvet robe embroidered with gold sequins, the Mir rejected the weak and sent the strongest to a German doctor in the town of Gilgit. With a magnifying glass, the physician examined each patient’s chest, mouth, and teeth, and then “he smelled us to see how we would do in altitude,” recalled Haji Baig, one of the high-altitude porters selected for Buhl’s expedition.
With men like Haji and Amir Mehdi, the sniff test proved accurate. When Buhl struggled down from the summit with frostbitten feet, Haji and Mehdi alternated carrying him on their backs. Impressed, Buhl spread the word about his Pakistani high-altitude porters, and the Italians recruited the same men the following year for the first ascent of K2. This success established a warrior class known as the Hunza Tigers, mountaineers whose political influence grew to rival the Mir’s.
One of these Hunza Tigers, Nazir Sabir, later overthrew the Mirs’ 950-year rule. Walking to elementary school one morning on the way to Baltit, a holy man waved him down and presented the young Nazir with a pebble of rock salt. Lick this once a day until it is dissolved, the holy
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