THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 71 



certainly has sublime heights above, and not less 

 extraordinary depths below. Now we catch a glimpse 

 of a snowy peak 20,000 feet high rising close above 

 us, and the next minute we look down into a dark 

 precipitous gorge thousands of feet deep. Then we 

 have, below the snowy peaks, Himaliyan hamlets, 

 with their flat roofs, placed on ridges of rock or on 

 green sloping meadows; enormous deodars, clothed 

 with veils of white flowering clematis ; grey streaks 

 of water below, from whence comes the thundering 

 sound of the imprisoned Sutlej the classic Hesudrus ; 

 almost precipitous slopes of shingle, and ridges of 

 mountain fragments. Above, there are green alps, 

 with splendid trees traced out against the sky ; the 

 intense blue of the sky, and the dark overshadowing 

 precipices. Anon, the path descends into almost 

 tropical shade at the bottom of the great ravines, 

 with ice-cold water falling round the dark roots of 

 the vegetation, and an almost ice-cold air fanning 

 the great leafy branches. The trees which meet us 

 almost at every step in this upper Sutlej valley are 

 worthy of the sublime scenery by which they are 

 surrounded, and are well fitted to remind us, ere we 

 pass into the snowy regions of unsullied truth un- 

 touched by organic life, that the struggling and half- 

 developed vegetable world aspires towards heaven, 

 and has not been unworthy of the grand design. 

 Even beneath the deep blue dome, the cloven preci- 

 pices and the sky-pointing snowy peaks, the gigantic 



