STRIKING SCENEEY. 241 



from this long theoretical digression to something more 

 practical. 



Next morning we went up the glen in search of (long. 

 There was a desolate grandeur about the mountains flank- 

 ing it that was very striking, though perhaps not so charm- 

 ing to the eye as the forest-clad ranges of the Himalayas. 

 The high arid hills to the right were rounded in form and 

 of a general reddish yellow, like the colour of a half-burnt 

 brick ; whereas on the left they reared aloft in grey pre- 

 cipices, or in steep acclivities covered with large loose stones 

 and shingle towards broad beds of snow, or serrated ridges 

 of rock frowning grimly above. In some of the rifts and 

 gullies running down into the glen lay beds of nM, ter- 

 minating in abrupt broken declivities of pure white ice. 

 Altogether it was a savage scene of utter loneliness, which 

 language would fail to describe. And the silence 1 — during 

 the lulls between the howling blasts of wind, the deep 

 depressing silence that reigned over this desert waste was 

 truly appalling. In most places one is accustomed to the 

 buzz of insects, the rustle of leaves, or the " busy hum," 

 though perhaps only as an almost imperceptible murmur. 

 Even at dead of night the air is nearly always stirred by 

 sound of some kind, however lightly it may affect the sense 

 of hearing. Here, the stillness is as of a sepulchre — all 

 Nature seems dead ! 



But I am forgetting that as so comparatively few of my 

 readers can have seen the wild yak of Tibet (Fosphagus 

 grunniens), the majority of them may wish to know what 

 the creature is like. Imagine, then, a clumsy bovine 

 animal,^ standing from 16 to 18 hands at the shoulder, 



^ Dimensions of a wild bull yak shot by Colonel E. Smyth : circumference 

 of horn at base, 18 inches ; length of ditto, 36 inches. Space between the 

 eyes, 16 inches ; between the horns to tip of nose, 29^ inches ; between horns 

 to root of tail, 8 feet 5 inches ; length of tail, 37 inches. Height, 18 hands, 

 or 6 feet (as far as it was possible to take it of a dead animal). Circumference 

 of fore-foot, 21^ inches ; ditto hind-foot, 19 inches. Girth round belly, 9 feet 

 8 inches ; ditto round shoulder, 10 feet 1 inch; ditto round neck at thinnest 



Q 



