From Egypt to Japan

We might have startled a leopard anywhere on the mountain side. A young Scotchman whom we met with his rifle on his shoulder, said he had shot two a fortnight ago, but that there was a very big one about, which he had seen several times, but could never get a shot at, but he hoped to bring him down before long.

With such chat as this we trotted up the mountain road, till we came to where it divides, where, leaving Mr. Herron and C – to go on straight to Landour, we turned to the left to make a flying visit to the other hill station of Mussoorie. As we rode along, Mr. Woodside pointed out to me the spot where, a few weeks before, his horse had backed off a precipice, and been dashed to pieces. Fortunately he was not on his back (he had alighted to make a call), or the horse and his rider might have gone over together. As we wound up the road he recalled another incident, which occurred several years ago: "I had been to attend an evening reception at the Young Ladies' school (which we had just left), and about eleven o'clock mounted to ride home. I had a white horse, and it was a bright moonlight night, and as I rode up the hill, just as I turned a corner in the road there (pointing to the spot) I saw a huge leopard crouching in the attitude of preparing to spring. I rose up in the saddle (my friend is a man of giant stature) and shouted at the top of my voice, and the beast, not knowing what strange monster he had encountered, leaped over the bank and disappeared."

"The next day," he added, "I was telling the story to a gentleman, who replied, 'You were very fortunate to escape so,' and then related an incident of his own, in which a leopard sprang upon his horse, which the fright caused to give such a bound that the brute fell off, and the horse starting at full speed, they escaped. But he felt that the escape was so providential that he had thanks returned in the church the next Sabbath for his deliverance from a sudden death."

Thus listening to my companion's adventures, we rode along the ridge of Mussoorie to its highest point, which commands a grand view of the Snowy Range. Here stands a convent, which educates hundreds of the daughters of Protestant Englishmen, as well as those of its own faith. Thus the Catholic Church plants its outposts on the very crests of the mountains.

At Landour is another Catholic institution (for boys) called St. George's College, perhaps as a delicate flattery to Englishmen in taking the name of their guardian saint. It has a chime of bells, which at that height and that hour strikes the ear with singular and touching effect. It may well stir up our Protestant friends, both to admire and to imitate, as it furnishes a new proof of the omnipresence of Rome, when the traveller finds its convents, and hears the chime of its vesper bells, on the heights and amid the valleys of the Himalayas.

But the sun was sinking, and it was four miles from Mussoorie to Landour, where we were to make our second attempt to see the snows. Turning our horses, we rode at full speed along the ridge of the mountain, and reached the top of Lal Tiba before sunset, but only to be again disappointed. Northward and eastward the clouds hung upon the great mountains. But if one part of the horizon was hidden, on the other we looked over the top of the Sewalic range, to where the red and fiery sun was sinking in a bank of cloud – not "clouds full of rain," but merely clouds of dust, rolling upward "like the smoke of a furnace" from the hot plains of India. In the foreground was the soft, green valley of Dehra Doon, more beautiful from the contrast with the burning plains beyond. It was a peaceful landscape, as the shadows of evening were gathering over it. From this we turned to watch the light as it crept up the sides of the mountains. The panorama was constantly changing, and every instant took on some new feature of grandeur. As daylight faded, another light flashed out behind us, for the mountains were on fire. It is a custom of the people, who are herdsmen, to burn off the low brush (as the Indians burned over the prairies), that the grass may spring up fresh and green for their flocks and cattle; and it was a fearful spectacle, that of these great belts of fire running along the mountain side, and lighting up the black gorges below.

Giving our horses to the guides to be led down the declivity, we walked down a narrow path in the rocks that led to Woodstock, a female seminary, built on a kind of terrace half a mile below – a most picturesque spot (none the less romantic because a tiger had once carried off a man from the foot of the ravine a few rods below the house), and there, around a cheerful table, and before a roaring fire, forgot the fatigues of the day, and hoped for sunshine on the morrow.

It was not yet daylight when we awoke. The stars were shining when we came out on the terrace, and the waning moon still hung its crescent overhead. A faint light began to glimmer in the east. We were quickly muffled up (for it was cold) and climbing up the steep path to Lal Tiba, hoping yet trembling. I was soon out of breath, and had more than once to sit down on the rocks to recover myself. But in a moment I would rise and rush on again, so eager was I with hope, and yet so fearful of disappointment. One more pull and we were on the top, and behold the glory of God spread abroad upon the mountains! Our perseverance was rewarded at last. There were the Himalayas – the great mountains of India, of Asia, of the globe. The snowy range was in full view for more than a hundred miles. The sun had not yet risen, but his golden limb now touched the east, and as the great round orb rose above the horizon, it seemed as if God himself were coming to illumine the universe which he had created. One after another the distant peaks caught the light upon their fields of snow, and sent it back as if they were the shining gates of the heavenly city. One could almost look up to them as Divine intelligences, and address them in the lines of the old hymn:

These glorious minds, how bright they shine,Whence all their white array?How came they to the happy seatsOf everlasting day?

But restraining our enthusiasm for the moment, let us look at the configuration of this Snowy Range, simply as a study in geography. We are in presence of the highest mountains on the globe. We are on the border of that table-land of Asia ("High Asia") which the Arabs in their poetical language call "The Roof of the World." Yonder pass leads over into Thibet. The trend of the mountains is from southeast to northwest, almost belting the continent. Indeed, physical geographers trace it much farther, following it down on one hand through the Malayan Peninsula and on the other running it through the Hindoo Koosh (or Caucasus) northwest to Mt. Ararat in Armenia; and across into Europe, through Turkey and Greece, to the Alps and the Pyrenees, forming what the Arabs call "The Stony Girdle of the Earth." But the centre of that girdle, the clasp of that mighty zone, is here.

It is difficult to form an idea of the altitude of mountains, when we have no basis of comparison in those which are familiar. But nature here is on another scale than we have seen it before. In Europe Mont Blanc is "the monarch of mountains," but yonder peak, Nunda Davee, which shows above the horizon at the distance of a hundred and ten miles, is 25,600 feet high – that is, nearly two miles higher than Mont Blanc! There are others still higher – Kinchinganga and Dwalaghiri – but they are not in sight, as they are farther east in Nepaul. But from Darjeeling, a hill station much frequented in the summer months by residents of Calcutta, one may get an unobstructed view of Mount Everest, 29,000 feet high, the loftiest summit on the globe. And here before us are a number of peaks, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four thousand feet high – higher than Chimborazo, or any peak of the Andes.

Perhaps the Himalayas are less impressive than the Alps in proportion, because the snow line is so much higher. In Switzerland we reach the line of perpetual snow at 8,900 feet, so that the Jungfrau, which is less than 14,000 feet, has a full mile of snow covering her virgin breast. But here the traveller must ascend 18,000 feet, nearly two miles higher, before he comes to the line of perpetual snow. It is considered a great achievement of the most daring Alpine climbers to reach the top of the Jungfrau or the Matterhorn, but here many of the passes are higher than the summit of either. Dr. Bellew, who accompanied the expedition of Sir Douglas Forsyth three years since to Yarkund and Kashgar, told me they crossed passes 19,000 feet high, nearly 4,000 feet higher than Mont Blanc. He said they did not need a guide, for that the path was marked by bones of men and beasts that had perished by the way; the bodies lying where they fell, for no beast or bird lives at that far height, neither vulture nor jackal, while the intense cold preserved the bodies from decay.

But the Himalayas are not all heights, but heights and depths. The mountains are divided by valleys. From where we stand the eye sweeps over the tops of nine or ten separate ranges, with valleys between, in which are scattered hundreds of villages. The enterprising traveller may descend into these deep places of the earth, and make his toilsome way over one range after another, till he reaches the snows. But he will find it a fourteen days' march. My companion had once spent six weeks in a missionary tour among these villages.

Wilson, the author of "The Abode of Snow,"5 who spent months in travelling through the Inner Himalayas, from Thibet to Cashmere, makes a comparison of these mountains with the Alps. There are some advantages to be claimed for the latter. Not only are they more accessible, but combine in a smaller space more variety. Their sides are more generally clothed with forests, which are mirrored in those beautiful sheets of water that give such a charm both to Swiss and Scottish scenery. But in the Himalayas there is hardly a lake to be seen until one enters the Vale of Cashmere. Then the Alps have more of the human element, in the picturesque Swiss villages. The traveller looks down from snow-covered mountains into valleys with meadows and houses and the spires of churches. But in the Himalayas there is not a sign of civilization, and hardly of habitation. Occasionally a village or a Buddhist monastery may stand out picturesquely on the top of a hill, but generally the mountains are given up to utter desolation.

"But," says Wilson, "when all these admissions in favor of Switzerland are made, the Himalayas still remain unsurpassed, and even unapproached, as regards all the wilder and grander features of mountain scenery. There is nothing in the Alps which can afford even a faint idea of the savage desolation and appalling sublimity of many of the Himalayan scenes. Nowhere have the faces of the rocks been so scarred and riven by the nightly action of frost and the midday floods from melting snow. In almost every valley we see places where whole peaks or sides of great mountains have very recently come shattering down."

This constant action of the elements sometimes carves the sides of the mountains into castellated forms, like the cañons of the Yellowstone and the Colorado:

"Gigantic mural precipices, bastions, towers, castles, citadels, and spires rise up thousands of feet in height, mocking in their immensity and grandeur the puny efforts of human art; while yet higher the domes of pure white snow and glittering spires of ice far surpass in perfection, as well as in immensity, all the Moslem musjids and minars."

But more impressive than the most fantastic or imposing forms are the vast spaces of untrodden snow, and the awful solitudes and silences of the upper air. No wonder that the Hindoos made this inaccessible region the dwelling-place of their gods. It is their Kylas, or Heaven. The peak of Badrinath, 24,000 feet high, is the abode of Vishnu; and that of Kedarnath, 23,000, is the abode of Shiva – two of the Hindoo Trinity. Nunda Davee (the goddess Nunda) is the wife of Shiva. Around these summits gathers the whole Hindoo mythology. Yonder, where we see a slight hollow in the mountains, is Gungootree, where the Ganges takes its rise, issuing from a great glacier by a fissure, or icy cavern, worn underneath, called the Cow's Mouth. Farther to the west is Jumnootree, the source of the Jumna. Both these places are very sacred in the eyes of the Hindoos, and as near to them as any structure can be placed, are shrines, which are visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all parts of India.

Thus these snowy heights are to the Hindoo Mount Sinai and Calvary in one. Here is not only the summit where God gave the law, but where God dwells evermore, and out of which issue the sacred rivers, which are like the rivers of the water of life flowing out of the throne of God; or like the blood of atonement, to wash away the sins of the world.

But the associations of this spot are not all of Hindooism and idolatry. True, we are in a wintry region, but there is an Alpine flower that grows at the foot of the snows. Close to Lal Tiba I observed a large tree of rhododendrons, in full bloom, although it was February, their scarlet blossoms contrasting with the snow which had fallen on them the night before. But the fairest blossom on that Alpine height is a Christian church. Lal Tiba itself belongs to the Presbyterian mission, and adjoining it is the house of the missionaries. On the ridge is a mission church, built chiefly by the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Woodside. It is a modest, yet tasteful building, standing on a point of rock, which is in full view of the Snowy Range, and overlooks the whole mountain landscape. It was like a banner in the sky – that white church – standing on such a height, as if it were in the clouds, looking across at the mighty range beyond, and smiling at the eternal snows!

The hardest thing in going round the world, is to break away from friends. Not the friends we have left in America, for those we may hope to see again, but the friends made along the way. One meets so many kind people, and enters so many hospitable homes, that to part from them is an ever-renewing sorrow and regret. We have found many such homes in India, but none in which we would linger more than in this lovely Vale of Dehra Doon.

One attraction is the Girls' School, which we might almost call the missionary flower of India. The building, which would be a "Seminary" at home, stands in the midst of ample grounds, where, in the intervals of study, the inmates can find healthful exercise. The pupils are mostly the daughters of native Christians – converted Hindoos or Mohammedans. Some are orphans, or have been forsaken by their parents, and have thus fallen to the care of an institution which is more to them than their natural fathers and mothers. Many of these young girls had very sweet faces, and all were as modest and well behaved as the girls I have seen in any similar institution in our own country. Some are adopted by friends in America, who engage to provide for their education. Wishing to have a part in this good work, we looked about the school till we picked out the veriest morsel of a creature, as small as Dickens's Tiny Tim – but whose eyes were very bright, and her mind as active as her body was frail, and C – thereupon adopted her and paid down a hundred rupees for a year's board and teaching. She is by birth a Mohammedan, but will be trained up as a Christian. She is very winning in her ways; and, dear me, when the little creature crept up into my lap, and looked up into my face with her great black eyes, it was such an appeal for love and protection as I could not resist; and when she put her thin arms around my neck, I felt richer than if I had been encircled with one of those necklaces of pearl, which the Rajahs were just then throwing around the neck of the Prince of Wales.

Our last day was spent in a visit to the tea plantations. The culture of tea has been introduced into India within a few years, and portions of the country are found so favorable that the tea is thought by many equal to that imported from China. Mr. Woodside took us out in a carriage a few miles, when we left the road and crossed the fields on the back of an elephant, which is a better "coigne of vantage" than the back of a horse, as the rider is lifted up higher into the air, and in passing under trees can stretch out his hand (as we did) and pick blossoms and birds' nests from the branches; but there is a rolling motion a little too much like "life on an ocean wave," and if it were not for the glory of the thing I confess I should rather have under me some steady old trotter, such as I have had at home, or even one of the little donkeys with which we used to amble about the streets of Cairo. But there are times when one would prefer the elephant, as if he should chance to meet a tiger! The beast we were riding this morning was an old tiger hunter, that had often been out in the jungle, and as he marched off, seemed as if he would like nothing better than to smell his old enemy. In a deadly combat the tiger has the advantage in quickness of motion, and can spring upon the elephant's neck, but if the latter can get his trunk around him he is done for, for he is instantly dashed to the ground, and trampled to death under the monster's feet. We had no occasion to test his courage, though, if what we heard was true, he might have found game not far off, for a native village through which we passed was just then in terror because of a tiger who had lately come about and carried off several bullocks only a few days before, and they had sent to Mr. Bell, a tea planter whom we met later in the day, to come and shoot him. He told me he would come willingly, but that the natives were of a low caste, who had not the Hindoos' horror of touching such food, and devoured the half eaten bullock. If, he said, they would only let the carcass alone, the tiger always comes back, and he would plant himself in some post of observation, and with a rifle which never failed would soon relieve them of their terrible enemy.

After an hour of this cross-country riding, our elephant drew up before the door of a large house; a ladder was brought, and we clambered down his sides. Just then we heard the sharp cracks of a gun, and the planter came in, saying that he had been picking off monkeys which were a little troublesome in his garden. This was Mr. Nelson, one of the largest planters in the valley, with whom we had engaged to take tiffin. He took us over his plantation, which is laid out on a grand scale, many acres being set in rows with the tea plant, which is a small shrub, about as large as a gooseberry bush, from which the leaves are carefully picked. The green tea is not a different plant from the black tea, but only differently prepared. From the plantation we were taken to the roasting-house, where the tea lay upon the floor in great heaps, like heaps of grain; and where it is subjected to a variety of processes, to prepare it for use or for exportation. It is first "wilted" in large copper pans or ovens; then "rolled" on a table of stretched matting; then slightly dried, and put back in the ovens; then rolled again; and finally subjected to a good "roasting," by which time every drop of moisture is got out of it, and it acquires the peculiar twist, or shrivelled look, so well known to dainty lovers of the cup which cheers but not inebriates. How perfect was the growing and the preparation appeared when we sat down at the generous table, where we found the flavor as delicate as that of any we had ever sipped that came from the Flowery Land.

Leaving this kind and hospitable family, we rode on to the plantation of Mr. Bell, who had the "engagement" to shoot the tiger. He is a brave Scot, very fond of sport, and had a room full of stuffed birds, which he was going to send off to Australia. Occasionally he had a shot at other game. Once he had brought down a leopard, and, as he said, thought the beast was "deed," and went up to him, when the brute gave a spring, and tore open his leg, which laid him up for two months. But such beasts are really less dangerous than the cobras, which crawl among the rows of plants, and as the field-hands go among them barefoot, some fall victims every year. But an Englishman is protected by his boots, and Mr. Bell strolls about with his dog and his gun, without the slightest sense of danger.

We had now accomplished our visit to the Himalayas, and were to bid adieu to the mountains and the valleys. But how were we to get back to Saharanpur? There was the mail-wagon and the omnibuckus. But these seemed very prosaic after our mountain raptures. Mr. Herron suggested that we should try dooleys– long palanquins in which we could lie down and sleep (perhaps), and thus be carried over the mountains at night. As we were eager for new experiences, of course we were ready for any novelty. But great bodies move slowly, and how great we were we began to realize when we found what a force it took to move us. Mr. Herron sent for the chaudri– a kind of public carrier whose office it is to provide for such services – and an engagement was formally entered into between the high contracting parties that for a certain sum he was to provide two dooleys and a sufficient number of bearers, to carry us over the mountains to Saharanpur, a distance of forty-two miles. This was duly signed and sealed, and the money paid on the spot, with promise of liberal backsheesh at the end if the agreement was satisfactorily performed.

Thus authorized and empowered to enter into negotiations with inferior parties, the chaudri sent forward a courier, or sarbarah, to go ahead over the whole route a day in advance, and to secure the relays, and thus prepare for our royal progress.

This seemed very magnificent, but when our retinue filed into the yard on the evening of our departure, and drew up before the veranda, we were almost ashamed to see what a prodigious ado it took to get us two poor mortals out of the valley. Our escort was as follows: Each dooley had six bearers, or kahars– four to carry it, and two to be ready as a reserve. Besides these twelve, there were two bahangi-wallas to carry our one trunk on a bamboo pole, making fourteen persons in all. As there were five stages (for one set of men could only go about eight miles), it took seventy men (besides the two high officials) to carry our sacred persons these forty-two miles! Of the reserve of four who walked beside us, two performed the function of torch-bearers – no unimportant matter when traversing a forest so full of wild beasts that the natives cannot be induced to cross it at night without lights kept burning.

The torch was made simply by winding a piece of cloth around the end of a stick, and pouring oil upon it from a bottle carried for the purpose (just the mode of the wise virgins in the parable). Our kind friends had put a mattress in each dooley, with pillows and coverlet, so that if we could not quite go to bed, we could make ourselves comfortable for a night's journey. I took off my boots, and wrapping my feet in the soft fur of the skin of the Himalayan goat, which I had purchased in the mountains, stretched myself

Like a warrior taking his rest,With his martial cloak around him,

and bade the cavalcade take up its march. They lighted their torches, and like the wise virgins, "took oil in their vessels with their lamps," and set out on our night journey. At first we wound our way through the streets of the town, through bazaars and past temples, till at last we emerged from all signs of human habitation, and were alone with the forests and the stars.

When we were fairly in the woods, all the stories I had heard of wild beasts came back to me. For a week past I had been listening to thrilling incidents, many of which occurred in this very mountain pass. The Sewalic range is entirely uninhabited except along the roads, and is thus given up to wild beasts, and nowhere is one more likely to meet an adventure. That very morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Woodside had given me her experience. She was once crossing this pass at night, and as it came near the break of day she saw men running, and heard the cry of "tiger," but thought little of it, as the natives were apt to give false alarms; but presently the horses began to rear and plunge, so that the driver loosed them and let them go, and just then she heard a tremendous roar, which seemed close to the wagon, where a couple of the brutes had come down to drink of a brook by the roadside. She was so terrified that she did not dare to look out, but shut at once the windows of the gharri. Presently some soldiers came up the pass with elephants, who went in pursuit, but the monsters had retreated into the forest.