The Cliff Climbers

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The Cliff Climbers
A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters"
By Captain Mayne Reid
CHAPTER ONE.
THE HIMALAYAS.
Who has not heard of the Himalayas--those Titanic masses of mountains that interpose themselves between the hot plains of India and the cold table-lands of Thibet--a worthy barrier between the two greatest empires in the world, the Mogul and the Celestial? The veriest tyro in geography can tell you that they are the tallest mountains on the surface of the earth; that their summits--a half-dozen of them at least--surmount the sea-level by more than five miles of perpendicular height; that more than thirty of them rise above twenty thousand feet, and carry upon their tops the eternal snow!
The more skilled geographer, or geognosist, could communicate hundreds of other interesting facts in relation to these majestic mountains; vast volumes might be filled with most attractive details of them--their fauna, their sylva, and their flora. But here, my reader, we have only space to speak of a few of the more salient points, that may enable you to form some idea of the Titanic grandeur of these mighty masses of snow-crowned rock, which, towering aloft, frown or smile, as the case may be, on our grand empire of Ind.
It is the language of writers to call the Himalayas a "chain of mountains." Spanish geographers would call them a "sierra" (saw)--a phrase which they have applied to the Andes of America. Either term is inappropriate, when speaking of the Himalayas: for the vast tract occupied by these mountains--over 200,000 square miles, or three times the size of Great Britain--in shape bears no resemblance to a chain. Its length is only six or seven times greater than its breadth--the former being about a thousand miles, while the latter in many places extends through two degrees of the earth's latitude.
Moreover, from the western termination of the Himalayas, in the country of Cabul, to their eastern declension near the banks of the Burrampooter, there is no continuity that would entitle them to the appellation of a "chain of mountains." Between these two points they are cut transversely--and in many places--by stupendous valleys, that form the channels of great rivers, which, instead of running east and west, as the mountains themselves were supposed to trend, have their courses in the transverse direction--often flowing due north or south.
It is true that, to a traveller approaching the Himalayas from any part of the great plain of India, these mountains present the appearance of a single range, stretching continuously along the horizon from east to west. This, however, is a mere optical illusion; and, instead of one range, the Himalayas may be regarded as a congeries of mountain ridges, covering a superficies of 200,000 square miles, and running in as many different directions as there are points in the compass.
Within the circumference of this vast mountain tract there is great variety of climate, soil, and productions. Among the lower hills--those contiguous to the plains of India--as well as in some of the more profound valleys of the interior--the flora is of a tropical or subtropical character. The palm, the tree fern, and bamboo here flourish in free luxuriance. Higher up appears the vegetation of the temperate zone, represented by forests of gigantic oaks of various species, by sycamores, pines, walnut, and chestnut trees. Still higher are the rhododendrons, the birches, and heaths; succeeded by a region of herbaceous vegetation--by slopes, and even table-plains, covered with rich grasses. Stretching onward and upward to the line of the eternal snow, there are encountered the Cryptogamia--the lichens and mosses of Alpine growth--just as they are found within the limits of the polar circle; so that the traveller, who passes from the plains of India towards the high ridges of the Himalayas, or who climbs out of one of the deeper valleys up to some snow-clad summit that surmounts it, may experience within a journey of a few hours' duration every degree of climate, and observe a representative of every species of vegetation known upon the face of the earth!
The Himalayas are not uninhabited. On the contrary, one considerable kingdom (Nepaul), with many petty states and communities (as Bhotan, Sikhim, Gurwhal, Kumaon, and the famed Cashmere), are found within their boundaries--some enjoying a sort of political independence, but most of them living under the protection either of the Anglo-Indian empire, on the one side, or that of China upon the other. The inhabitants of these several states are of mixed races, and very different from the people of Hindostan. Towards the east--in Bhotan and Sikhim--they are chiefly of the Mongolian stock, in customs and manners resembling the people of Thibet, and, like them, practising the religion of the Lamas. In the western Himalayas there is an admixture of Ghoorka mountaineers, Hindoos from the south, Sikhs from Lahore, and Mahometans from the old