Though Michael Flannigan was at heart an inventor, he longed to do something truly spectacular, and that opportunity came in 1852.

He was preparing a particularly large order of his Phanerogam Rendering Tubes (apparently there was a convention of German businessmen coming to London later that month) when a gentleman walked into his shop on Fleet Street at the opposite end of the Old Bailey. The gentleman who was, naturally, in search of one of Flannigan's excellent devices, was also the Secretary to the Secretary of Leisurely Pursuits at the Royal Society of Geographers. While Flannigan prepared his order, the gent in question, Sir Bedding Sweaterton, enthused about the latest report from India.

A survey of the Nanga Parbat as well as the peaks of the Karakoram Range was well underway by Sir George Everest (1), the ex-surveyor general of India, and the first set of computations were in. It very much appeared as though a certain peak, simply named Peak XV was higher than any other summit in the world. This news fired Flannigan's imagination greater than an overheated Nautch.

Charcoal drawing of Peak XV by Michael Flannigan, circa. 1852

The Irishman had long been interested in the sport of mountaineering, but what was left to do in Europe? All of the major peaks had been scaled dozens of times by the 1850s, and he had no interest in attempting one of the lesser peaks in North America. Flannigan organized an expedition to Asia on a shoestring, without the help of the Geographical Society. Funds came largely from the successful sales of his Phanerogam Rendering Tubes. He and his only other European companion, a Tyrolean mountaineer named Gunter Gruntz, planned the expedition.

Gruntz was infamous for a debacle on the Matterhorn the previous year that resulted in the death of The Right Honorable Noseworthy Shigstiggins, a confirmed Pratt (2) and erstwhile adventurer. Though Gruntz had taken the (metaphorical) fall for the disaster, the fault had been Shigstiggins and the other Pratts on the climb – they refused to rope up, unless they rope provided could be guaranteed to be "squeezable". Gruntz was not entirely morose when he related Shigstiggin's 5,000 foot fall.

Flannigan and Gruntz booked passage not to India, but China. Other groups were rumored to have heard of Flannigan's trip, and planned to climb through the Nepalese Himalaya to beat him to the summit. Flannigan reasoned that the summit would be easiest approached from the north, and planned an assault from the Tibet side.

It was lucky for him that no other expeditions made it as far as Kathmandu, for he and Gruntz faced interminable delays in China, though these later proved quite profitable for the wily Flannigan.(3)

Eventually, they made it to Lhasa in November of 1852, leaving them less than two months of decent climbing weather. Though officially closed, they were welcomed by the Tibetans, who were keen on gathering information about the Nepalese British. (4) Flannigan was entranced by the pageant and color that was Lhasa. But they were both nearly slaughtered when Gruntz blew his nose on the kha-btags – the white prayer scarf customarily given as a greeting – which was offered to him by the Dalai Lama.

When Flannigan told the lamas in Lhasa about his plans to climb the holy peak of Everest, they thought him mad. In fact, the entire population of Lhasa shunned the Europeans, except for a small group of devout monks who believed that they should go with Flannigan to try and create a shrine on the holy summit.

They began their ascent the next day. The monks increased the frequency of their obeisance to the Buddha, and the mountain itself seemed to conspire against them. Though Gruntz was not comfortable with the idea, Flannigan insisted that they gain some ground quickly by ascending the icy curve of the Rongbuk glacier. Flannigan assured Gruntz that his new mountain-climbing gear would help them in the first glacial phase of their assault. (7)  It was a lamentable lapse in judgment by the experience mountaineer Gruntz, though not as bad as the time on the Matterhorn when he let one of the Pratts untie his rope so that he could give it a "proper squeezing."

Gruntz watercolor of a monk falling in crevasse, circa. 1852

Their progress on the glacier was excruciatingly slow. Not only were the monks bowing every step, but they seemed unable to prevent the retractable blades from engaging, and they were constantly sliding backwards on the ice. Then they hit the crevasses. By the end of the first day, three of the monks had fallen to their deaths. This, of course, gave the monks an excellent opportunity to recite the Bardo (or death) ritual. The second day saw them only half-way up the glacier, the summit hauntingly distant as two remaining monks chanted Om mani padme um.

That night the first storm hit them, and the remaining two monks wandered off into the darkness, "perhaps to find their lost comrades," Flannigan wrote.

It was clear that the expedition was a failure. They could never hope to reach the summit on their own, particularly since the only remaining food was at the bottom of several crevasses with the monks. The storm blew itself out later that night,  as Gruntz, in the inky depths of his Germanic sleep, snored loud enough to drown his noisy flatus.   Flannigan watched the moon rise over the impossible distance of the peak. He penned the following words, which were later to inspire his prolific niece, Emily Chesley, in the opening lines of The Pestilence:

Distant moon, rising over even more distant Peak XV, how I long to feel your icy light bath me in its far off truth. If only I could have found the way to locate you from this Earthly bond, and slipping free of it, embrace your rarified glory... Bayjesus this man smells.

Another attempt at Peak XV was never made, until well after it was renamed Mount Everest. It was finally climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

--"Scholarship" by The Squire

1.  At first, the summit was simply labeled as "H", but changed to Peak XV in 1849-50. It was renamed in honor of Sir George Everest, surveyor general of India from 1830-1843, in 1865. (Back)

2.  The Pratts were a group of politicians who refused to sit in the House of Parliament without specially-padded cushions. The government of the day refused their buttock-centric demands, which resulted in many a Pratt standing up in the House until they fell down from exhaustion. (Back)

3.  One of the most serious delays result from Gruntz's experimentation with opium (his supply of schnapps had run out somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean). It took Flannigan several weeks to prize the belligerent Tyrolean out of an opium den in Hong Kong, though this was how Flannigan first conceived of his Particulate Breathing Apparatus. This segment of their journey is more fully explored in the excellent monograph, Feng Brat: Michael Flannigan's Travels in China. Locationism also has its roots in this journey.  (Back)

4.  The Tibetans fought a war with Nepal in 1848.   (Back)

5.  Gruntz was often heard to compare them favourably with the Pratts, though Flannigan was less than pleased at the pace of the voyage.  (Back)

6.  "The tea was a revolting mixture of soda water, salt and rancid butter, all churned together to form a disgusting red pasty drink," Flannigan wrote in his journal. "I retch every time I drink the foul concoction; Gruntz seems to enjoy it. If his dalliance with opium was not enough to convince me, his love of this tea has confirmed that the man is a throwback. But for all that he is a good travel companion – except for the gas, of course."   (Back)

7.  Flannigan had created the Himalayan Slipper – a piece of footwear that looked much like crampons, but with retractable blades that could come out on all sides of the shoe. "Good for going up and down," Flannigan had enthused.  (Back)