text: The mountain was given its English name by Andrew Waugh, the British surveyor-general of India. With both Nepal and Tibet closed to foreign travel, he wrote:\n\n…I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor, Colonel Sir Geo. Everest to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. … But here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal.… In the meantime the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign…a name whereby it may be known among citizens and geographers and become a household word among civilized nations.\n\nHence Waugh chose to name the mountain after George Everest, first using the spelling Mont Everest, and then Mount Everest.