Kashmir 165 



desolate outside pines we had climbed through, stripped 

 of their bark and blanched by the weather, were a 

 fit foreground to a scene that can hardly be surpassed 

 in solemn grandeur. 



Wastes of stone and sand surrounded us ; far in 

 the veiled distance must lie " The Forbidden Land," 

 and the impenetrable Lhassa which has beckoned many 

 a traveller, like the Lorelei of old. Around us were 

 heights unnoticed, unnumbered, unnamed ; neither 

 were we drawn to explore these prehistoric lumps ; 

 no earth or grass covered the naked skeletons ; the 

 vastness and nakedness of the piles of debris, the 

 shattered rocks, the ice-worn stones, formed one 

 of earth's saddest pictures. 



No wonder that mountains have been, and are still, 

 worshipped as gods which are ' too great to appease, 

 too high to appal, too far to call." For, after all, 

 Nature is " the true quickener of emotion, the 

 awakener of thought, the background and abode 

 of man, the analyser of the human mind, and the 

 vehicle or subject of human intercourse." 



We walked on through the pass until we came 

 to the point where the streams ran away from us 

 toward Thibet. We were beyond the roof-ridge. The 

 descent on the other side was scarcely noticeable, for 

 Ladak and Balti lie very high. The climate there 

 is intensely dry, the sun's rays very hot, and the 

 afternoon winds are piercingly cold, while, except in 

 summer, it freezes every night. It is a barren, dreary 

 country. 



