112 WAUGH ON MOUNTS EVEREST AND DEODANGA. [Jan. 11, 1858. 
rary by the two Nepalese embassies to Pekin ; and, 2nd, of a paper 
on the Seven Cosis ; 3rd, several assertions, for which no evidence 
is produced, in a letter to the Secretary of the Asiatic Society of 
Bengal. 
As regards the first, or the Itineraries, I believe no person who 
has had any surveying experience can doubt their being absolutely 
useless as evidence of anything but the existence of a pass called 
Bhairava Langur. Mr. Hodgson supplies the information that it is 
identical in name with the adjacent mountain, which is, I conclude, 
derived from information. It is absolutely necessary, for using a 
route survey, that both bearings and linear distances should be 
given : the former in these routes are totally deficient ; the latter 
are given along the road, which in mountainous countries would 
only be useful had nature so formed the passes that they should 
all lie in a straight line, and be reached one from another by a 
nearly level straight line. The document in question bears evidence 
that this is not the case by the route distances (117 miles). Mount 
Everest is far within Bhairava Langur, and this assumes the identity 
of their directions. If the Itinerary is competent to determine the 
position of Bhairava Langur, it is equally so to determine that of 
Pekin, and Mr. Hodgson would do geometers a service by explaining 
the process. 
In a note to page 478 of No. VI. of the Journal of the Asiatic 
Society of Bengal, Mr. Hodgson says that Bhairava Langur is 
visible from the confines of Nepal (proper) as a great mass. Now, 
it is demonstrable that the summit of Mount Everest is not visible 
from Katmandu or any part of the valley of Nepal as a conspicuous 
or recognisable prominence, if indeed it at all tops the intervening 
snowy range. Mr. Hodgson also asserts that it is visible from the 
frontiers of Sikkim. It certainly is not visible from Kanglanamo, 
13,000 feet high, being shut out by the shoulder of our Peak XIII . ; 
and it is evident that the same result will be true all along the Sin- 
galilah range as far as Tonglo. I know that Mr. Hodgson asserts 
that it has no competitor for notice, but sound geometry contradicts 
Mr. Hodgson ; and I for one prefer the evidence it gives to any that 
may be derived from the fallible rendering of fallible informants. 
Mr. Hodgson further undertakes to find the name of any object 
whose bearing and distance he has. It may be possible in some 
cases, and possibly Dewalaghiri is one. I can only say, having sur- 
veyed myself among hills, that nothing is more fallacious than 
names given from a distance, even when an object is conspicuously 
visible. I myself believe that there is an identity between the 
mountains to which Captain Webb and the General Trigonometrical 
