“Perhaps—perhaps in the choir, when they have service.”
Evidently she had her own ideas about sentiments appropriate in this Cathedral. There was a place and time for all things. This was not the time nor place to make herself prominent, not even with the divine art; rather the time for meditation upon the infinite grandeur of the scene.
And the verger took them to other points of view, even as far as Tongloo (altitude 10,000 feet), and Sunkukphoo (altitude 12,000 feet), consuming several days for these journeys. Over hill and dale they went, from the Forest Bungalow mounting to Goom Rock; passing by the pools (porkri) on to the Manay Bhunjun (temple); up zigzags to a way-station hut. They passed through bamboo groves, and were off and on their ponies as the route became too steep for riding. The view at Tongloo was comprehensive and superb. Then they continued on by descending, before surmounting another range; past waterfalls, towards the base of Pionothumna Hills (S. E.); to rise again rapidly by endless zigzags, seventeen at one time alone, towards the Kala Porkri, a loftier point than they had yet reached; then more zigzags, much puffing and blowing, through pines; then across the country, the open upon a high level; and finally up and up, terrific pull, higher and higher, by what Adele called the Himalaya Ladder, as extended as Jacob’s, twenty-five zigzags in succession, a steep climb and hard work, requiring an extra pair of wings, and double-bellows lungs—to the summit at Sunkukphoo.
“Out on the roof!” exclaimed Miss Winchester.
“Among the flying buttresses,” thought the Professor.
“On a pinnacle of the Temple!” exclaimed the Doctor.
“All the world beneath us,” said Paul in admiration.
“All but those Delectable Mountains,” thought Adele, glancing at once towards the snowy peaks which still towered above them at an elevation of some twenty-nine thousand feet.
They stood in the presence of mountains five and a half miles high, with comparatively little intervening; in the presence of some of the highest summits upon the globe, and themselves literally on a pinnacle.[2]
The sublimity of the Himalayas, now enhanced by greater proximity of the beholder, presented a more pictorial effect than heretofore: the grouping of the Trio of Mountains a composition from the Artistic Mind of Nature; an inspiration full of aspiration, for the earth itself seemed inspired by a desire to ascend. Such was the first impression.