4 A NATURALIST IN HIMALAYA 



draped in glaciers and snows. All are hewn into 

 diverse forms and are peopled with many and varied 

 species. It is this great upheaval that has given the 

 wonderful variety to the landscape, that has moulded 

 the district into mountains of every shape, carved it 

 into valleys of every stage of growth, and has bestowed 

 on it every degree of temperature from the oppressive 

 warmth of the sub-tropical valley to the cold of the 

 perpetual snow. 



The general features of the country are best seen 

 from the summit of a hill seven or eight thousand feet 

 in height. A wide expanse of landscape is then 

 exposed to view. Far away to the north-east the 

 mountains of Kashmir rise aloft in snowy peaks and 

 ranges. Their ice-clad summits rise in a bare glisten- 

 ing mass above the green wooded slopes of the nearer 

 hills, but their distance is so great that it is impossible 

 to appreciate their true magnificence and the stupen- 

 dous scale on which they are built. The western 

 boundary lies closer to us. It is dark, dreary and 

 uninviting. Rugged black ridges of inhospitable 

 mountain rise upward from the Indus. Pine forests 

 cover many of its slopes ; narrow paths wind along its 

 spurs, and on the peaks and projections of its ridges 

 can be seen the block-houses of stone that mark the 

 last outposts of the empire. This is the frontier. 

 The main ridge is the barrier between British territory 

 and the land of the independent Afghan tribes. 



To the south the eye sinks down on the vast plains 

 of India. Like a sea they extend outwards from the 

 mountains and fade into the far horizon. Hundreds 

 of miles of unbroken plain expand and a whole country 

 is spread out beneath the view. Everything is dwarfed 



