456 A TRANSFORMATION-SCENE. 



wanderings over many parts of the globe have I seen 

 anything to equal the marvellously grand and expansive 

 panorama which the rising curtain of sun-illumined, rose- 

 tinted vapour gradually disclosed to view. It was indeed 

 a splendid final transformation-scene, so to speak, in this 

 vast theatre of nature I was leaving, and will ever remain 

 deeply engraved on my memory. Eastward, to the right, 

 over a rugged foreground of huge fragments of grey rock, 

 and the irregular line of pointed plumes of the dark-green 

 pines shooting up, tall and straight, from the mountain-side 

 below, rose the noble snow-cone of Doonagiri in bold relief 

 against an intensely blue firmament ; whilst the more distant 

 crest of Kamet (25,400 feet) reared itself among a medley 

 of frozen peaks, glaciers, and vast untrodden snow -fields 

 lying in dreamy magnificence away northward. Nearer, and 

 more westward, across the profound hazy depth of the in- 

 tervening valley of the Doulee, mighty phalanxes of rock- 

 panoplied giants, mantled in violet, purple, and blue, and 

 helmeted with eternal snow, stood resplendent in the golden 

 glory of sunset, keeping watch, as it were, around the sacred 

 precincts of the Badrinath shrine lying latent in one of the 

 deep dark gorges below them. 



When contemplating the sublime grandeur of those majestic 

 snow-crowned peaks, standing there as they have done for 

 unknown time, and, for aught we know, as they will do for 

 countless ages, unchanged in their wan solemnity, it seemed 

 to me that nowhere could a place in which to hold com- 

 munion with the great Creator of the universe have been 

 more fitly chosen than there, among His own mighty and 

 wonderful works. What is the basilica of St Peter at Eome, 

 with its vast and perfect proportions and gorgeous interior ; 

 or the Duomo at Milan, with its forest of elaborately wrought 

 pinnacles ; or the mosque of Sta Sophia at Istamboul, with its 

 precious marbles, jasper, and porphyry, its huge cupola and 

 graceful minarets ; or our own St Paul's Cathedral, with its 



