Narrator John Rowe
with Leonard Fenton

'In outward appearance T. Vigne, Esq, as he liked to call himself, was the very model of an English gentleman. Even in the mountains he dressed like one, wearing a a broad-brimmed white, cotton hat, and a white duck-shooting jacket'. But why was Vigne particularly favoured by the authorities? And why was Vigne the only Englishman allowed to enter the remote country of Little Tibet? Was he, in fact, a political spy?

This series of six programmes, adapted by John Keay from his book "When Men and Mountains Meet", recounts the adventures of the extraordinary band of men who early in the 19th century were among the first Europeans to explore the Himalayas.