498 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



the magnificently wooded region below. The highest of these Sikkim peaks is Kin- 

 chin -junga — the third, but until recently believed to be the first, in hight upon the 

 globe. It falls but a hundred feet below the Dipsang or Karkakorum peak, and 

 about eight hundred below Gaurisanker, which the British have re-named Mount 

 Everest. Kinchin -junga rises to the altitude of 28,172 feet. Not only is its summit 

 untrodden by man or beast, but nothing that breathes has ever mounted so high into 

 the air. The condor, who in his flight looks down upon the dome of Chimborazo, 

 never mounts to i^ithin thousands of feet of the hight of Kinchin-junga.* 



* Humboldt's statement that the condor flies higher than Chimborazo (21,420 feet) has been 

 questioned. But Orton has seen numbers of them hovering at least a thousand feet above 

 Pichincha (16,000 feet), and does not doubt that they fly much higher. Miiller, in his ascent of 

 Orizaba, saw falcons flying fully 18,000 feet high ; and it is affirmed that wild geese fly over the 

 peak of Kunchan-ghow (22,000 feet). There can be little doubt that the condor attains an eleva- 

 tion greater than any other bird, and that no other creature ever voluntarily ascends so high. 



