officially, to conquer Kazbek with guides from the village Gergeti. He described the denuded territories of Abkhazia in a moving chapter on 'The Solitude of Abkhazia', in The Exploration of the Caucasus published in 1896. In 1899 Douglas Freshfield travelled to Green Lakes accompanied by the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella. He conducted expeditions around Kangchenjunga (Khangchendzonga) and set out with his party to trek in a circle around Kangchenjunga from the North. When he arrived safely in at Dzongri, he lit a big bonfire, which could be seen from Darjeeling and the Governor of Bengal ordered a Gun Salute to be fired in his honour. He also became the first mountaineer to examine the western face of Kangchenjunga, which rises from the Kanchenjunga Glacier. Freshfield described Siniolchu as "The Most Superb Triumph of Mountain Architecture and The Most Beautiful Snow Mountain in the World". In 1905 he attempted to climb Rwenzori Abruzzi in Uganda but failed due to bad weather. However the Freshfield Pass on the mountain was named after him. Alpine Club and RGS Freshfield wrote extensively about travel and the Alps, editing the Alpine Journal from 1872 to 1880. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and became its joint secretary in 1881. At that time he was living at Stanhope Gardens, and by 1891 at Camden Hill, Hampstead. He was president of the Alpine Club from 1893 to 1895, chairman of the Society of Authors from 1908 to 1909, and president of the Association of Geographical Teachers from 1897 to 1910. In 1904, he was president of the Geographical Section of the British Association. He was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1903, became a vice-president of the society in 1906 and its president from 1914 until 1917. He became a trustee of the RGS in 1924. University College, Oxford made him an honorary fellow, and he was awarded honorary degrees of Doctor of Civil Laws at the University of Oxford and the University of Geneva Personal Freshfield married Augusta Charlotte Ritchie (1847–1911) on 27 November 1869. She was the daughter of William Ritchie and the sister of Sir Richmond Ritchie. They had four daughters and a son, Henry Douglas Freshfield, who died aged fourteen in 1891. The family loss was the occasion of a memorial gift for the people of Forest Row in the form of a building to be