“Oh, that’s only chilly Kurseong, where passengers begin to sneeze,” answered the civil engineer.
Adele, also responsive, gave an appreciative mock sneeze at once, adding she “needed a little practice after being so long down on the plains.”
“Others take tea for colds,” responded the civil engineer. “Kurseong tea is, you know, tip-top.”
“Then it is the summit?” quizzed Paul.
“No, only halfway up, when you reach that point; the real summit will appear as far aloft as that does now.”
“Oh!” said the Doctor, “then, as the Florida ‘crackers’ would say, we are just ‘two sights’ from the real summit.”
“They measure by sights there, do they?” remarked the Professor. “In Switzerland they measure by hours; and down in Calcutta I noticed Hindoos who measured time by the numbers of pipes they could smoke.”
Adele gazed in amazement. It seemed hardly credible that this lofty point, over one thousand feet higher than the famous view-point on the Gemmi Pass in the Alps, should be only halfway up, that the foot-hills of the Himalayas covered with verdure were as lofty as Mont Blanc covered with snow fields and glaciers. All the party began to realize the grand scale upon which the Himalayas are built.
“So much for low latitude and high snow-line,” remarked the Professor. “Now look out for changes in vegetation, races and costumes;” all of which soon became apparent.
These southern slopes being protected by the high range beyond, and the low latitude in which they are situated, make it possible to reproduce the vegetation of all the zones within an incredibly short distance. The Doctor remarked: “It is as if we were traveling, in the short distance of about forty miles, from Cuba to Canada.” The effect as if the earth’s surface had been tilted upwards, so that to ascend the mountain spurs was really to travel towards the Frigid Zone; and that the north-pole must be up above them instead of being in its supposed proper place, the middle of the north. This state of things, so unusual to Adele, made a vivid impression upon her as they advanced upwards.