GLACIER OF THE GANGES. 55 



snow that at times bridges over tlie stream was gone. 

 The walking was bad, for in all the small tributary streams 

 were stones and rocks incrusted with ice, which made 

 them very difficult to cross. On the opposite side we saw 

 immense flocks of burrell, but there was no getting at 

 them. 



" At last, the great glacier of the Ganges was reached, 

 and never can I forget my first impressions when I beheld 

 it before me in all its savage grandeur. The glacier, 

 thickly studded with enormous loose rocks and earth, is 

 about a mile in wddth, and extends upwards many miles, 

 towards an immense mountain, covered with perpetual 

 snow down to its base, and its glittering summit piercing 

 the very skies, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the 

 sea. The chasm in the glacier, through which the sacred 

 stream rushes forth into the light of day, is named the 

 Cow's Mouth, and is held in the deepest reverence by all the 

 Hindoos ; and the regions of eternal frost in its vicinity 

 are the scenes of many of their most sacred mysteries. 

 The Ganges enters the world no puny stream, but bursts 

 forth from its icy womb, a river thirty or forty yards in 

 breadth, of great depth and very rapid. A burrell was 

 killed by a lucky shot across the river just at the mouth ; 

 it fell backwards into the torrent, and was no more seen. 

 Extensive as my travels since this day have been through 

 these beautiful mountains, and amidst all the splendid 

 scenery I have looked on, I can recall none so strikingly 

 magnificent as the glacier of the Ganges." * 



* Markham, Shooting in the Himal., p. 57, 



