“’Tis the last
Of all the woody, high, well watered dells
On Etna; and the beam
Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs
Down its steep verdant sides; the air
Is freshened by the leaping stream, which throws
Eternal showers of spray on the mossed roots
Of trees, and vines of turf, and long dark shoots
Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells
Of hyacinths, and on late anemones,
That muffle its wet banks; but glade,
And stream, and sward, and chestnut trees,
End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare
Of the hot noon, without a shade,
Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare;
The peak, round which the white clouds play.”
Between France and Spain lies the great system of the Pyrenees, whose topmost peaks exceed 11,000 feet in altitude. Their entire breadth averages between forty and fifty miles; the southern slope is exceedingly rugged and abrupt, and the passes or defiles exhibit a character of exceeding savageness. The two loftiest crests are Mount Maladetta, 11,426 feet, and Mont Perdu, 11,275 feet. The interior of Spain consists of an elevated table-land, bordered by the wild mountain-ranges of the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Morena. The average height of the snowy chain of the Nevada is 6000 feet, but the Peak of Mulharen soars to the noble elevation of 11,678 feet.
In France, we meet with the chains of the Cevennes and the Vosges, the former extending along the right bank of the Rhone, with an average altitude of 3000 feet; the latter stretching from north to south along the right bank of the Rhine. The vine-clad slopes of the latter offer many a romantic picture to the wayfarer in Rhineland. Very curious in geological interest are the extinct volcanic mountains of Auvergne; so black, charred, scathed, and desolate, that one might suppose them to have been the scene of some old-world battle between the Titans and the Olympian gods. Here the Puy de Sancy exceeds 6000 feet (6215), and the now silent cone of the Puy de Dôme, 4500 feet in height.
The Hungarian Mountains, or Mountains of Germany, occupy the country between the Rhine and the eighteenth meridian of east longitude. Here we meet with the dark and densely wooded crests of the Schwarz Wald, or Black Forest; the Erz-Gebirge, on the borders of Saxony and Bohemia; and the rich metalliferous masses of the legend-haunted Harz. Continuing our survey to the eastward, our glances rest on the bold and many-peaked groups of the Carpathians, which, commencing near the sources of the Oder and the Vistula, describe a semicircle round the fertile Hungarian plain for between seven and eight hundred miles. Striking down to the Danube, it faces on the opposite side the lofty wall of the Balkan, and through the gorge thus formed, the famous “Iron Gates” of ancient story, the river rolls its waters with impetuous rapidity. The more elevated summits of the Carpathians possess an average height of 5000 feet, but Mount Lomnitz reaches the loftier level of 7962 feet.
On the borders of Asia lies the long and narrow chain, or rather chains, of the Ural Mountains, with an average altitude of from 2000 to 2500 feet, sinking in about latitude 57° to a rocky ridge of little more than 1100 feet. The loftiest crest is Mount Yaman, in latitude 54° 13´, 5387 feet. The Ural Mountains possess abundant mineral treasures, both gold and platinum occurring in extensive abundance.
The chain of Mount Caucasus stretches for about 700 miles between the Black and Caspian Seas, in the direction of north-west and south-east. It exceeds 150 miles in breadth, throwing out from the central mass numerous branches and parallel ridges, and enclosing a network of valleys, plains, and ravines. The culminating point appears to be the group or mountain-knot of Elburz, in the meridian of 42° 25´ E., which attains the stupendous elevation of 18,493 feet. Kasbek, which is really in Asia, reaches 16,500 feet.
In the Asiatic continent the grandest mountain-system is that of the Himalayas (or “Snowy Mountains”), which limit the Thibetan table-land on the south, and divide it from the hot plains of northern India. They extend in an east and west direction for about 1500 miles, with a breadth of from 200 to 250; and consist of a number of parallel ranges, divided by transverse valleys, and rising one above another like a series of gigantic terraces. The slopes are clothed with an exceedingly rich and beautiful flora, and far up to the very snow-line extend magnificent breadths of forest foliage.[200] On the southern slope this snow-line is about 15,000 feet high; on the northern, 18,000 feet. The loftiest summit of the Himalayas, and probably the very apex of our globe, is Mount Everest (latitude 27° 59´), 29,002 feet in altitude. Kunchin-jinga is 28,156 feet; Dhawalgiri, 28,000 feet; and Javaher, 25,746 feet above the ocean-level.
“As we ascend the exterior face of these mountains,”[201] says Captain Strachey, “tropical vegetation prevails to a height of about 4000 feet, though even from 3000 feet a few of the forms of colder climates begin to appear; the vegetation, however, is, on the whole, scanty on this declivity. Far different is it when we follow the same zone of elevation into the interior of the mountains, along the courses of the larger rivers, which, owing to the great depths of their valleys, carry a tropical flora into the very heart of the mountain region. The sheltered and confined beds of these rivers, where the two great requisites for tropical vegetation, heat and humidity, are at their maximum, often afford the finest specimens of forest scenery, varied by an admixture of the temperate forms of vegetable life, which here descend to their lowest level. Thus the traveller’s eye may rest on palms and acacias intermingled with pines; on oaks or maples covered with epiphytal orchideæ; while pothos and clematis, bamboos and ivy, fill up the strangely contrasted picture.
“Above 4000 feet oaks and rhododendrons greatly increase in number, and these trees, with andromeda (Pieris), form the great mass of the forest from 6000 to 8000 feet. Species of the deciduous trees of the temperate zone are gradually introduced as we rise, and these again, with the addition of other pines, prevail in the upper regions of forest—that is, from 8000 to 11,500 feet.”
