“Okay to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there.”
He was also interested in the mountain beyond the valley; it was a sensational peak, by any standards, and he was surprised that some traveler had not made much of it in the kind of book that a journey in Tibet invariably elicits. He climbed it in mind as he gazed, choosing a route by col and couloir until an exclamation from Mallinson drew his attention back to earth; he looked round then and saw the Chinese had been earnestly regarding him. “You were contemplating the mountain, Mr. Conway?” came the enquiry.
“Yes. It’s a fine sight. It has a name, I suppose?”
“It is called Karakal.”
“I don’t think I ever heard of it. Is it very high?”
“Over twenty-eight thousand feet.”
“Indeed? I didn’t realize there would be anything on that scale outside the Himalayas. Has it been properly surveyed? Whose are the measurements?”
“Whose would you expect, my dear sir? Is there anything incompatible between monasticism and trigonometry?”
Conway savored the phrase and replied: “Oh, not at all—not at all.” Then he laughed politely. He thought it a poorish joke, but one perhaps worth making the most of. Soon after that the journey to Shangri-La was begun.
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It’s a pretty good joke, after all.
It is to laugh.