THE SURVEY RANGE IN PROSPECT. 5 



like its ancient prototype, much favoured by the magnates of 

 our Indian empire, who are wont to luxuriate there during 

 a great part of the year. Thence, about ten days' stiff march- 

 ing brought us to that other popular, but less ostentatious, 

 mountain resort Mussoorie. The scenery and climate on 

 this portion of the journey were a truly delightful change 

 after the dreary monotony and thick sultry atmosphere of 

 " the plains." The clear bracing air of the mountains and 

 the refreshing fragrance of pine woods instilled new life into 

 one. Now our path would wind for miles through forests of 

 noble deodar cedars, or of grand old oaks and rhododendrons, 

 their gnarled and crooked branches all bedecked with lichen 

 and orchids, or ragged with trailing beards of grey moss ; and 

 the rhododendrons (which here are not merely shrubs, but 

 large forest-trees), although past the season of their flowering 

 prime, were still gorgeous with a wealth of crimson blossoms. 

 Now it lay along some bright green valley, beside a clear brawl- 

 ing brook dancing in the sunshine over its pebbly bed, and 

 flanked on either side by wooded heights or steep grassy slopes. 

 Sometimes, where it traversed a rocky eminence or an open 

 hillside, a superb panorama of the distant range of perpetual 

 snow would be disclosed to view, the long irregular chain of 

 grand frozen peaks and ridges rising sharply on the clear sky- 

 line, and stretching away right and left, their pale summits 

 gradually becoming more indistinct as they sank towards the 

 far horizon. The mists of early morning often lay in level 

 white banks along the bottom of the deep intervening valleys. 

 As the rising sun grew more powerful, the vapour would 

 slowly lift, and, taking the form of fantastic-shaped cumuli, 

 envelop the snowy crests in its heavy white folds, leaving 

 in the profound hollows a soft blue haze which was fitfully 

 darkened by the broad shadows of transitory clouds hovering 

 above. 



But mountain-roads have their drawbacks as well as their 

 delights. And of this fact one is reminded by having to 



