CHAPTER VII 



HIGH SOLITUDES 



FROM these scenes of tropical luxuriance and teem- 

 ing life I would transport the Artist to a region of 

 austerest beauty, far at the back of the Himalaya, 

 where only one white man as yet has penetrated : 

 where no life at all exists no tree, no simplest 

 plant, no humblest animalcula ; where, save for 

 some rugged precipice too steep for snow to lie, and 

 save also for the intense azure of the sky, all is 

 radiant whiteness. A region far distant from any 

 haunt of man, where reigns a mountain which 

 acknowledges supremacy to Mount Everest alone. 

 A region of completest solitude, where the solemn 

 silence is unbroken by the twitter of a single bird 

 or the drone of the smallest insect, and is disturbed 

 only by the occasional thunder of an avalanche or 

 the grinding crunch of the glacier as a reminder of 

 the titanic forces which are perpetually though 

 invisibly at work. 



Freezing this region is and full of danger. And 

 there is no short cut to it and no easy means of 

 transport. Only men in the prime of health can 

 reach there and return. And it is only men whose 

 faculties are at their finest who are fit to stand the 

 austerity of its cold, stern beauty. It lies at the 

 dividing line between India and Central Asia where 

 the waters which flow to India are parted from the 

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