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Mount Everest from Camp III.

During the time that the great attempt on the mountain without oxygen was being made, Finch was employed in getting the oxygen apparatus into order. It had suffered in a good many ways, and the method of inhaling the oxygen appeared to be deficient, the face-masks, in fact, causing a feeling of suffocation and not allowing a sufficiency of ordinary air to be inhaled. Finch had a very difficult time getting all this apparatus into order in this very high camp. It would have been difficult anywhere, but up here in the great cold and the great height it was infinitely more troublesome. As soon as the apparatus was in working order, they made numerous training walks up on to the passes, looking down into the heart of the Kharta Valley, from where they were able to see the Southern faces of the Himalaya and to know the way in which the clouds were pushing up from the South.

They had also instructed, to a certain extent, the Gurkha Tejbir Bura in the use of oxygen, as they intended him to help them in their advance on the mountain.