98 KINCHINJUNGA 



every shade glitter like emeralds in the brilliant 

 light. 



Through the trunks of the stately trees and 

 under their overarching boughs we look out towards 

 the snowy mountains. We look over the brink of 

 the spur, down into the deeps of the valleys richly 

 filled with tropical vegetation, their eastward-facing 

 sides now of purplest purple, their westward-facing 

 slopes radiant in the evening sunshine, with the full 

 richness of their foliage shown up by the dazzling 

 light. Far below we see the silver streak of some 

 foaming river, and then as we raise our eyes we 

 mark ridge rising behind ridge, higher and higher 

 and each of a deeper shade of purple than the one in 

 front. The lower are still clothed in forest, but the 

 green has been merged in the deep purple of the 

 atmosphere. The higher are bare rock till the 

 snow appears. But just across them floats a long 

 level wisp of fleecy cloud, and apparently the limits 

 of earth have been reached and sky has begun. 

 We would rest content with that. But our eyes 

 are drawn higher still. And high above the cloud, 

 and rendered inconceivably higher by its presence, 

 emerges the snowy summit of Kinchirijunga, serene 

 and calm and flushed with the rose of the setting 

 sun. As a background is a sky of the clearest, 

 bluest blue. 



These are the chief elements of the scene, but 

 all is in process of incessant yet imperceptible 

 change. The sunshine slowly softens, the purples 

 deepen, the flush on the mountains reddens. The air 

 becomes as soft as velvet. Not a leaf now stirs. A 

 holy peace steals over the mountains and settles in 



