35ft COURSE AND LEVELS 



on, and gave us an opportunity of congratulating each other that we had not 

 deferred the passage of the range. This snow storm interrupted a trip we 

 had contemplated making to revisit the pass, and which we put into exe- 

 cution the following morning. We found the distance about four miles and a 

 half, which occupied us three hours, being continued ascent and rather 

 steep latterly. 



Undisturbed by anxiety, we now found ourselves with sufficient leisure to 

 observe and to enjoy this singular scene. Seated on this primaeval ridge, which 

 at a distance had been so often the subject of admiration and wonder, it still 

 seemed a matter of surprize to us how we had reached such a spot. Around 

 us, and rising from the platform on which we stood, were seen many of 

 those peaks which form such conspicuous objects from the plains: though 

 elevated nearly 16,000 feet above the sea, we still looked up to those stu- 

 pendous structures before whose superior height the Andes themselves sink 

 into inferiority. Their nearness and consequent great apparent magnitude, 

 the idea that we were now close to objects so often viewed from great dis- 

 tances, and which had so often exercised conjecture ; these and a thousand 

 other circumstances gave an interest to the scene, that it is difficult to com- 

 municate by any description. On every side a vast expanse of snow met the 

 view, the eternal abode of wintry horrors, where the animal and vegetable 

 creation are alike oppressed, and nothing is seen but barrenness and deso- 

 lation ; conjecture is lost in attempting to fix the extent, the depth, or the 

 duration of these snows, which belong to a chain at once the highest and 

 the most extensive in the world. 



As viewed from this spot, the Himalaya is far from being a regular ridge, 

 or single series of peaks ; they are seen in every direction, rising up from 

 amidst the wilderness of snow that extends many miles in breadth. Look- 

 ing to the north, the eye traces the stream, on the banks of which our camp 

 lay, to its junction with the Baspa, not that the actual waters of either are 

 seen, for they lie far too low for the eye to detect them, but the general run 



