THE animal world in this higher region undergoes a change equally striking with the vegetable. The elephant and the tiger, kings of the forests beneath, disappear, or are very seldom seen. Depredations are chiefly committed by the wild cat, the bear, and the hog. The chamois bounds from rock to rock, and the forests are filled with deer of various species; of which the most rare and precious is that producing the musk. It is found only in the loftiest heights, amid rocks which the human foot scarcely dares to tread. The most intense cold is so essential to its life. that the young, on being brought down to a warm situation, usually perish in a few days.
THE MUSK-DEER
The forests, at all the more moderate elevations, are filled with flocks of such fowls as are elsewhere domesticated, here running about wild, tempting the pursuit of the sportsman; but, as they very seldom take wing, they are with difficulty reached by the gun. The peacock displays his glittering plumage only on the lower hills. The sovereign eagle is seldom descried amid the cliffs, which are inhabited by kites, hawks, and others of the minor predatory birds. Partridges and pheasants are numerous, and of various species; the latter are even seen flying amid the snows at a great elevation.
The domestic animals, fed by the natives on their rich pastures, are the common black cattle of India, combinedwith the yakof Thibet. Sheep and goats are also reared inlarge numbers, not only for the ordinary purposes of food and clothing, but for the conveyance of merchandise, which they alone are fitted to transport over the steep mountain-passes. Besides the common sheep, there is another breed, powerful and long-legged, and able to bear more than double the burden of the former.
The most elevated part of this stupendous range is that to the north of Bengal, along the heads of the Gogra, the Ganges, and the Jumna, and westward as far as the Sutlej. Above fifty peaks rise about 20,000 feet; and Kinchinjunga, 28,180 feet; Karakoram, 28,278 feet; and Everest, 29,000 feet, are the highest known points of the globe.
Notwithstanding the gloomy aspect of these mountain scenes, there are a few places in which they open out into smiling plains of considerable extent. The valleys of Nepaul, indeed, besides being very narrow, belong rather to the region of the lower hills. Considerably higher is found the Rama Serai, or the Happy Valley, where little eminences, villages,THE YAKand richly-cultivated fields, combine to form a delightful scene. The most extensive opening, however, takes place at its western extremity, where these great ridges enclose the little kingdom of Cashmere, which, beyond any other spot on Earth, seems to merit the appellation of a terrestrial paradise.
The passes which extend across this tremendous ridge into Thibet are of extreme and peculiar difficulty. From the structure of the mountains, the roads must generally be carried nearly over their summits, rising sometimes as high as 20,000 feet! They are, in most cases, formed by a precarious track along the alpine torrent, which dashes in an unbroken sheet of foam, through dark ravines bordered by precipitous mountain walls ascending above the clouds.
Down the perpendicular faces of these stupendous avenues descend almost continual showers of stony fragments, broken off from the cliffs above. Occasionally, large portions of rock are detached, and roll down in heaps, effacing every path which has been formed beneath, filling the beds of the rivers, and converting them into cataracts. The whole side of a mountain has been seen thus parted, and spread in fragments at its base.
Trees, torn up and precipitated into the abyss, lie stretched with their branches on the earth and their roots turned up to the sky. Yet through these tremendous passes, and across all these mighty obstructions, the daring industry of man has contrived to form tracks, -narrow, indeed, as well as perilous, but such as to enable Thibet and India to exchange commodities.
In proceeding along these stupendous heights, the traveller occasionally experiences a distressing sensation. The atmosphere, rarefied to excess, becomes nearly unfit for supporting respiration. The action of the lungs being impeded, the slightest fatigue overpowers him; he stops at every three or four steps, gasping for breath; the skin is painful, and blood bursts from the lips.
The natives, who are also seized with these symptoms,without being able to divine the physical cause, ascribe them to bis, or bish ; meaning air poisoned, as they imagine, by the deleterious odour of certain flowers. A little observation would have shown them that the flowers in these regions have scarcely any scent; while it is in the most elevated tracts, where all vegetation has ceased, that the feelings in question become most oppressive.
Amid these awful scenes there are two spots peculiarly sacred and sublime; those, namely, where the Jumna and the Ganges, the two rivers which give grandeur and fertility to the plain of Hindustan, burst from beneath the eternal snows. No mortal foot has yet ascended to their highest springs, situated in the most elevated recesses of the mountains. There they issue forth as torrents, amid broken masses of granite, to force their way through the deep glens of the middle Himalayah.
- HUGH MURRAY
What animals disappear as we reach the higher region? What are the chief animals found there?What is remarkable about the musk-deer? What birds are found there? What domestic animals are reared by the natives? What are the highest peaks in the range? What is the height of Everest? What is the character of Cashmere? What is the nature of the passes across the Himalayah ridge? What makes travelling by them very dangerous? What painful sensation does the traveller often feel in the higher altitudes? To what do the natives ascribe this? To what is it really owing? What are the two spots which are peculiarly sacred and sublime?