which, however, is not really the case, for their spurs
run in all directions; some seven or eight chains appear,
one overtopping the other, each getting fainter, until
a t last haze and distance hide the rest. Their
apparent height is much diminished by the great space
intervening, even between the nearest objects; and
the comparative lowness on the horizon of the whole
stupendous mass is partly owing to the same cause,
as also to there being no dazzling single peak towering
in the air, at least in this western branch of the
Himalaya, the entire range and group consisting, so to
say, of a succession of peaks clad in perennial snow.
Still it is a sight of unrivalled grandeur, and I was
fortunate indeed in having such a clear day to view it
all. The scenery may not be so picturesque, but
immeasurably more impressive, nay, more awful, than
any in Switzerland or the Tyrol. There are neither
lakes nor cascades here, which in beauty can be compared
with those of the Bernese Oberland, or the
valley of the Traun; indeed, except in Cashmere, there
are no great river basins on the Indian side of the
western Himalaya, the Indus, the Sutlej, and the
Sanpo or Brahmaputra, having their source in the
Tibetan or northern region of the chain intersecting its
axis in their solitary course. The entire breadth of
these formidable mountain masses varies from nearly a
hundred miles to almost double that in their western
branch. Notwithstanding the enormous aggregate
height of the Himalaya with Mount Everest (Gauri-
sankar), its highest peak, towering 29,000 feet above
the sea level, it is not at all certain whether the Karakoram,
or, according to native authority, the mighty
Muztakh range—for they look upon the former merely
as a separate ridge—reaching its greatest, yet known,
elevation, 28,250 feet, at K2 (survey symbol) recently
named “ Godwin Austen,” after its first surveyor—
be not the greater mass of mountains. Another
report has raised some doubt as to whether
“ Mount Everest ” be really the highest point in the
Himalaya. At the June, 1884, meeting of the
Royal Geographical Society, Mr. W. Graham, who
explored that portion of the chain in September, 1883,
in the course of a very interesting lecture, stated that,
having reached the lower summit of Kabru, at least
23,700 feet above the sea, whence he had the most
glorious view, he and his Swiss guide, looking in a
north-westerly direction towards Mount Everest (which
was less than seventy miles distant from where they
stood, and perfectly clear and visible), distinctly
saw two loftier peaks some eighty to a hundred miles
further north, one rock, one snow, towering far above
the second and more distant range. I t is to be hoped
G