A GRAND PROSPECT. 147 



up such a sublimely grand prospect of fell, forest, and flood 

 as could hardly be surpassed. Immediately on either side of 

 the foaming torrent that roared sullenly below and filled the 

 valley with a sullen resonance, the mountains rose in rugged 

 precipices, rocky amphitheatres, and abrupt spurs towards 

 the huge naked crags and shining snow-piles that stood out 

 in awful magnificence and with surprising distinctness 

 against the deep blue morning sky; two mighty twin-like 

 peaks, Noon and Koon, shooting up among their less lofty 

 neighbours to a height of over 23,000 feet above sea-level. 

 Glaciers lay in the hollows between some of the higher spurs, 

 whilst broad fields of glistening snow filled the head of the 

 main valley. Farther down it the steep mountain-sides were, 

 above, bright with green birch-woods, below, dark with vast 

 tracts of sombre -hued pine -forest, which here and there 

 seemed as if rent from top to bottom, where long lines of up- 

 rooted and broken pine-trunks, masses of earth-soiled snow 

 and cUlris, marked the course of avalanches that had recently 

 swept down from the towering heights into the blue depths 

 beneath. Not even among the finest scenery of the Alps 

 have I ever seen anything to surpass this view in beauty, or 

 to equal it in grandeur. 



The traveller who visits merely the sanitaria on the outer 

 ranges, or even the Cashmere valley itself, beautiful as it is, 

 can have no conception of the magnificent scenery of the 

 higher ranges in close proximity to the perpetual snows. In 

 fact, speaking comparatively, excepting a distant view of it, 

 he can hardly have seen true Himalayan scenery at all. 



Early in May the Furriabadee river can usually be crossed 

 on natural bridges of hard snow. Later in the season these 

 give way, when the torrent has to be bridged at some narrow 

 place by throwing a few tree-stems across it. 



But whilst I have been admiring the prospect, Kamzan has 

 made good use of the glass, and has espied a herd of ibex far 

 away among the crags above. After planning our stalk we 



