37 ^ 
THROUGH ASIA 
and admire. A magic scene so grand that neither pen nor 
brush could depict it adequately ! The architecture of 
Nature was conceived here on a bold and masterful plan 
— the blue glacier sunk between its black walls of rock, 
sheathed in mail of ice and snow — the five - headed 
mountain giant towering above the low valleys of the 
earth. The rocky wall immediately in front of me lay in 
such deep shadow that I could barely distinguish where its 
transparent ice-mantle ended and the black mountain-wall 
began. To the left, and a few hundred yards above me, the 
outermost parts of the glacier were bathed in the moon- 
light. The dark crest in the south-east was alive with 
white-veiled figures, dancing a perilous elf-dance past the 
giddy precipices, across the icy surface of the glacier, away 
over the northern summit of the Ice Mountains’ Father. 
These light clouds, dancing before the gentle southern 
breeze, formed in rapid succession concentric rings, haloes, 
and the like, in all the colours of the rainbow. It required 
no great stretch of fancy to transform the clouds into any 
conceivable .shapes,- — gho.sts in w’hile draperies cha.sing 
each other, dancing fairies, sportive ogres, a procession of 
the mountain king with his sons, the souls of the departed 
being led by their white-robed guardian-angels from earth 
to happier places. I seemed to see the white camel which 
brought the dervish down from Mus-tagh-ata, the forty 
horsemen who supported Khan Khoja against the Chinese, 
the blessed ones of Janaidar, the city of perfect happiness. 
In spite of the cold I remained standing in the snow 
fascinated, entranced, following with mingled wonder and 
surpri.se the hurrying train of the thousands of fantastic 
shapes. 
A dead silence everywhere — not an echo from the 
opposite wall of rock. The attenuated air was inert ; it 
needed an avalanche to make it vibrate. The breathing 
of the yaks was visible, but not audible. The animals 
stood silent and motionless, as if they too were under 
the witching spell of the night. The clouds flitted 
noiselessly by. The moon seemed to be gazing down 
fixedly upon the insignificant mortal who had had the 
