62 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
be decided by the tastes of the individual ; it is well 
that there should always be some risk to season the 
zest for sport of all kinds, and the various forms in 
which this risk may be taken remain open to choice. 
There can, however, be no question as to the 
exhilaration of camping at high elevations, of the 
beauties of the white outlines cut sharply against 
the indigo blue of the passing darkness, of the rosy 
tints of dawn, of the keen sunlight of midday, of 
the shadowy lights of. evening, and of the intense 
brilliance of the night ; they are each and all incom- 
parable, so that whether you wander beneath the 
great trees clothed with banners of moss waving to 
the chilly north, or lie in the meadows where the 
spring flowers crowd against the edge of the retreat- 
ing snows, or stand on the snow bridges while the 
grey water rushes loudly beneath your feet, you will 
be receiving and storing impressions that may years 
hence fill you with longings for the mountains that 
fascinate, perhaps because they seem so superior 
and so indifferent to man. 
Or is there, perhaps, another and more powerful 
influence at work? Shall we say that those of old 
who, completing their lesson of self-abandonment by 
a period of solitude in the hills of Hindustan, de- 
scended to impart a superior knowledge to its people, 
were all self-deceived when they fancied that at the 
birthplace of the sacred river they were most re- 
ceptive of its influence; and that the millions who 
live in this faith, and dying commend their ashes to 
the holy water, are all under the bane of a deadly 
error? Does our knowledge of things unseen justify 
us in referring all the physical and mental benefits 
