From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

At Landour is another Catholic institution (for boys) called St. George's College, perhaps as a delicate flattery to Englishmen in taking the name of their guardian saint. It has a chime of bells, which at that height and that hour strikes the ear with singular and touching effect. It may well stir up our Protestant friends, both to admire and to imitate, as it furnishes a new proof of the omnipresence of Rome, when the traveller finds its convents, and hears the chime of its vesper bells, on the heights and amid the valleys of the Himalayas.

But the sun was sinking, and it was four miles from Mussoorie to Landour, where we were to make our second attempt to see the snows. Turning our horses, we rode at full speed along the ridge of the mountain, and reached the top of Lal Tiba before sunset, but only to be again disappointed. Northward and eastward the clouds hung upon the great mountains. But if one part of the horizon was hidden, on the other we looked over the top of the Sewalic range, to where the red and fiery sun was sinking in a bank of cloud—not "clouds full of rain," but merely clouds of dust, rolling upward "like the smoke of a furnace" from the hot plains of India. In the foreground was the soft, green valley of Dehra Doon, more beautiful from the contrast with the burning plains beyond. It was a peaceful landscape, as the shadows of evening were gathering over it. From this we turned to watch the light as it crept up the sides of the mountains. The panorama was constantly changing, and every instant took on some new feature of grandeur. As daylight faded, another light flashed out behind us, for the mountains were on fire. It is a custom of the people, who are herdsmen, to burn off the low brush (as the Indians burned over the prairies), that the grass may spring up fresh and green for their flocks and cattle; and it was a fearful spectacle, that of these great belts of fire running along the mountain side, and lighting up the black gorges below.

Giving our horses to the guides to be led down the declivity, we walked down a narrow path in the rocks that led to Woodstock, a female seminary, built on a kind of terrace half a mile below—a most picturesque spot (none the less romantic because a tiger had once carried off a man from the foot of the ravine a few rods below the house), and there, around a cheerful table, and before a roaring fire, forgot the fatigues of the day, and hoped for sunshine on the morrow.

It was not yet daylight when we awoke. The stars were shining when we came out on the terrace, and the waning moon still hung its crescent overhead. A faint light began to glimmer in the east. We were quickly muffled up (for it was cold) and climbing up the steep path to Lal Tiba, hoping yet trembling. I was soon out of breath, and had more than once to sit down on the rocks to recover myself. But in a moment I would rise and rush on again, so eager was I with hope, and yet so fearful of disappointment. One more pull and we were on the top, and behold the glory of God spread abroad upon the mountains! Our perseverance was rewarded at last. There were the Himalayas—the great mountains of India, of Asia, of the globe. The snowy range was in full view for more than a hundred miles. The sun had not yet risen, but his golden limb now touched the east, and as the great round orb rose above the horizon, it seemed as if God himself were coming to illumine the universe which he had created. One after another the distant peaks caught the light upon their fields of snow, and sent it back as if they were the shining gates of the heavenly city. One could almost look up to them as Divine intelligences, and address them in the lines of the old hymn:

These glorious minds, how bright they shine,

Whence all their white array?

How came they to the happy seats

Of everlasting day?

But restraining our enthusiasm for the moment, let us look at the configuration of this Snowy Range, simply as a study in geography. We are in presence of the highest mountains on the globe. We are on the border of that table-land of Asia ("High Asia") which the Arabs in their poetical language call "The Roof of the World." Yonder pass leads over into Thibet. The trend of the mountains is from southeast to northwest, almost belting the continent. Indeed, physical geographers trace it much farther, following it down on one hand through the Malayan Peninsula and on the other running it through the Hindoo Koosh (or Caucasus) northwest to Mt. Ararat in Armenia; and across into Europe, through Turkey and Greece, to the Alps and the Pyrenees, forming what the Arabs call "The Stony Girdle of the Earth." But the centre of that girdle, the clasp of that mighty zone, is here.

It is difficult to form an idea of the altitude of mountains, when we have no basis of comparison in those which are familiar. But nature here is on another scale than we have seen it before. In Europe Mont Blanc is "the monarch of mountains," but yonder peak, Nunda Davee, which shows above the horizon at the distance of a hundred and ten miles, is 25,600 feet high—that is, nearly two miles higher than Mont Blanc! There are others still higher—Kinchinganga and Dwalaghiri—but they are not in sight, as they are farther east in Nepaul. But from Darjeeling, a hill station much frequented in the summer months by residents of Calcutta, one may get an unobstructed view of Mount Everest, 29,000 feet high, the loftiest summit on the globe. And here before us are a number of peaks, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four thousand feet high—higher than Chimborazo, or any peak of the Andes.