assure us should terminate every essay.

Some there are who quote the Indian sage only to mock him. Such assert that the beauties of the Himalayas have been greatly exaggerated—that, as regards grandeur, their scenery compares unfavourably with that of the Andes, while their beauty is surpassed by that of the Alps. Not having seen the Andes, I am unable to criticise the assertion regarding the grandeur of the Himalayas, but I find it difficult to imagine anything finer than their scenery.

As regards beauty, the Himalayas at their best surpass the Alps, because they exhibit far more variety, and present everything on a grander scale.

The Himalayas are a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They have two faces—the fair and the plain. In May they are at their worst. Those of the hillsides which are not afforested are brown, arid, and desolate, and the valleys, in addition to being unpleasantly hot, are dry and dusty. The foliage of the trees lacks freshness, and everywhere there is a remarkable absence of water, save in the valleys through which the rivers flow. On the other hand, September is the month in which the Himalayas attain perfection or something approaching it. The eye is refreshed by the bright emerald garment which the hills have newly donned. The foliage is green and luxuriant. Waterfalls, cascades, mighty torrents and rivulets abound. Himachal has been converted into fairyland by the monsoon rains.

A remarkable feature of the Himalayas is the abruptness with which they rise from the plains in most places. In some parts there are low foothills; but speaking generally the mountains that rise from the plain attain a height of 4000 or 5000 feet.

It is difficult for any person who has not passed from the plains of India to the Himalayas to realise fully the vast difference between the two countries and the dramatic suddenness with which the change takes place.

The plains are as flat as the proverbial pancake—a dead monotony of cultivated alluvium, square mile upon square mile of wheat, rice, vetch, sugar-cane, and other crops, amidst which mango groves, bamboo clumps, palms, and hamlets are scattered promiscuously. In some places the hills rise sheer from this, in others they are separated from the alluvial plains by belts of country known as the Tarai and Bhabar. The Tarai is low-lying, marshy land covered with tall, feathery grass, beautifully monotonous. This is succeeded by a stretch of gently-rising ground, 10 or 20 miles in breadth, known as the Bhabar—a strip of forest composed mainly of tall evergreen sal trees (Shorea robusta). These trees grow so close together that the forest is difficult to penetrate, especially after the rains, when the undergrowth is dense and rank. Very beautiful is the Bhabar, and very stimulating to the imagination. One writer speaks of it as "a jungle rhapsody, an extravagant, impossible botanical tour de force, intensely modern in its Titanic, incoherent magnificence." It is the home of the elephant, the tiger, the panther, the wild boar, several species of deer, and of many strange and beautiful birds.

Whether from the flat plains or the gently-sloping Bhabar, the mountains rise with startling suddenness.

The flora and fauna of the Himalayas differ from those of the neighbouring plains as greatly as the trees and animals of England differ from those of Africa.

Of the common trees of the plains of India—the nim, mango, babul, tamarind, shesham, palm, and plantain—not one is to be found growing on the hills. The lower slopes are covered with sal trees like the Bhabar. These cease to grow at elevations of 3000 feet above the sea-level, and, higher up, every rise of 1000 feet means a considerable change in the flora. Above the sal belt come several species of tropical evergreen trees, among the stems and branches of which great creepers entangle themselves in fantastic figures. At elevations of 4000 feet the long-leaved pine (Pinus longifolia) appears. From 5000 to 10,000 feet, several species of evergreen oaks abound. Above 6000 feet are to be seen the rhododendron, the deodar and other hill cypresses, and the beautiful horse-chestnut. On the lower slopes the undergrowth is composed largely of begonias and berberry. Higher up maidenhair and other ferns abound, and the trunks of the oaks and rhododendrons are festooned with hanging moss.

Between elevations of 10,000 and 12,000 feet the silver fir is the commonest tree. Above 12,000 feet the firs become stunted and dwarfed, on account of the low temperatures that prevail, and juniper and birch are the characteristic trees.

There are spots in the Himalayas, at heights varying from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, where wild raspberries grow, and the yellow colt's-foot, the dandelion, the blue gentian, the Michaelmas daisy, the purple columbine, the centauria, the anemone, and the edelweiss occur in profusion. Orchids grow in large numbers in most parts of the Himalayas.

Every hillside is not covered with foliage. Many are rugged and bare. Some of these are too precipitous to sustain vegetation, others are masses of quartz and granite. On the hillsides most exposed to the wind, only grass and small shrubs are able to obtain a foothold.

"On the vast ridges of elevated mountain masses," writes Weber in The Forests of Upper India, "which constitute the Himalayas are found different regions of distinct character. The loftiest peaks of the snowy range abutting on the great plateaux of Central Asia and Tibet run like a great belt across the globe, falling towards the south-west to the plains of India. Between the summit and the plains, a distance of 60 to 70 miles, there are higher, middle, and lower ranges, so cut up by deep and winding valleys and river-courses, that no labyrinth could be found more confusing or difficult to unravel. There is nowhere any tableland, as at the Cape or in Colorado, with horizontal strata of rock cut down by water into valleys or cañons. The strata seem, on the contrary, to have been shoved up and crumpled in all directions by some powerful shrinkage of the earth's crust, due perhaps to cooling; and the result is such a jumble of contorted rock masses, that it looks as if some great castle had been blown up by dynamite and its walls hurled in all directions. The great central masses, however, consist generally of crystalline granite, gneiss, and quartz rock, protruding from the bowels of the earth and shoving up the stratified envelope of rocks nearly 6 miles above sea-level.... The higher you get up ... the rougher and more difficult becomes the climbing; the valleys are deeper and more cut into ravines, the rocks more fantastically and rudely torn asunder, and the very vitals of the earth exposed; while the heights above tower to the skies. The torrents rushing from under the glaciers which flow from the snow-clad summits roar and foam, eating their way ever into the misty gorges."

Those who have not visited the Himalayas may perhaps best obtain an idea of the nature of the country from a brief description of that traversed by a path leading from the plain to the snowy range. Let us take the path from Kathgodam, the terminus of the Rohilkhand and Kumaun railway, to the Pindari glacier.

For the first two miles the journey is along the cart-road to Naini Tal, on the right bank of the Gola river.

At Ranibagh the pilgrim to the Pindari glacier leaves the cart-road and follows a bridle-path which, having crossed the Gola by a suspension bridge, mounts the steep hill on the left bank. Skirting this hill on its upward course, the road reaches the far side, which slopes down to the Barakheri stream. A fairly steep ascent of 5 miles through well-wooded country brings the traveller to Bhim Tal, a lake 4500 feet above the level of the sea. This lake, of which the area is about 150 acres, is one of the largest of a series of lakes formed by the flow of