Volume 55, Number 14 · September 25, 2008
The Return of 'The Snow Leopard'
By Pico Iyer
The Snow Leopard is an account of an expedition high into the seldom-seen Himalayan land of Inner Dolpo, to record the habits of the bharal, or rare Himalayan blue sheep, and, if possible, in passing to glimpse the famously shy and evasive snow leopard. The book, which is just being reissued by Penguin Classics, begins, as most scientific logs do, with a precise map, and ends with scholarly notes and an index. The leader of the climb is the eminent field biologist George Schaller (here known as 'GS') and with him travel various local porters and Sherpas and the writer who records the trip, Peter Matthiessen. The author, a 'naturalist, explorer,' as his bio has it, takes pains to note every 'cocoa-coloured wood frog' the travelers pass, and the 'pale lavender-blue winged blossoms of the orchid tree (Bauhinia).' He records altitudes and temperatures and the history and geography of every region he visits. The human habitations he describes are, typically, full of 'vacant children, listless adults, bent dogs and thin chickens in a litter of sagging shacks and rubble, mud, weeds, stagnant ditches....'
Feature, 4161 words
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