The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 20 August 2007
by Welthy Honsinger Fisher
Before World War II, the world seemed a much larger place. There were still large regions of the planet that were unexplored by Westerners which seemed ripe for discovery and adventure. Old movies from the 1930s reflect this dreamy adventurousness. Of course, visions of these alien lands were colored by sheer remoteness, and by cultural ignorance. It was also a time for great journeys of discovery and exploration. Trips to the poles, mountain climbing expeditions, caravans and men lost in the jungles of Africa. We now remember the men who first reached the summit of Everest, but how many remember the failed expeditions that preceded Hillary's trip? Welthy Honsinger Fisher, author of this travel tale from 1925, remembers Mallory, who, in the previous year, made it as far as the shoulder of Everest and did not return.
Fisher, who was an American teacher and advocate for literacy among Indian women and girls, was married just a year or two when she and her husband, who was a missionary, took this short trip from Calcutta to Darjeeling and up to the verge of the Himalaya. It was less of an adventure than a long trip for a spectacular picnic, but she was writing for people back home who knew next to nothing of such places. She and her husband, who she calls The Saheb, form a small caravan in Darjeeling, near a missionary school for girls (which still exists). They set out on a rainy spring morning, and climb slowly up the mountains (presumably into Nepal), and reach twelve thousand feet in about a week. They reach a vantage that gives them a spectacular panoramic view of the Himalayan range, where the author waxes rhapsodic about Everest and its lesser-known neighbors, rising six miles into the sky in sharp peaks of rock and ice. Along the way, Fisher talks about the rhododendron forests and the Indian and Tibetan people who populate the region. Her knowledge of the land and people are sharp and is little distorted by cultural chauvanism, though there are points at which her sense of Western (and especially American) superiority show through. She remains surprisingly sensitive to the religious sensibilities of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism, certainly for the wife of a missionary. The book is short, published in 1926, and so is fairly rare. It is copiously illustrated by photographs of Fisher's journey. She has a wide eyed wonder at all she sees on her trip. As a chapter in the early literature of the Himalayan foothills, the book is a pleasant window on its time and its exotic place.
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