The breathtaking adventure of three brothers who in the mid-19th century led an expedition to the Himalaya
The brothers Schlagintweit were protégés of Alexander von Humboldt and led an East India Company expedition to the Himalayas. They were the first Europeans to stand at the base of Nanga Parbat and the first people ever to scale a height of 6,785 meters, and they surveyed the country – and its people – with great precision. Disguised as locals, the brothers forged ahead into areas whose entry is under penalty of death – and one of them actually did pay for it with his life. Yet what they brought back from the expedition is impressive: 14,777 items in 510 wooden boxes – more material than they’d ever be able to appraise in their lifetimes. Yet the experts remained largely unmoved by their research; envious Brits ridiculed them and refused to take them seriously at all as researchers because of one mistake. Nevertheless, the brothers persisted: Virtually to their very last breath, they continued to take stock of and process the greatest adventure of their lives.
