The Cliff Climbers

Mayne Reid

The Cliff Climbers A Sequel to «The Plant Hunters»

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 empire of the Moguls; and here, also, are to be found, in full profession, the three great representative religions of Asia – Mahometan, Buddhist, and Brahmin.

The population, however, is exceedingly small compared with the surface over which it is distributed; and there are many tracts in the Himalayan hills, thousands of square miles in extent, where no human being dwells – where no chimney sends up its smoke. Indeed, there are vast tracts, especially among the high snow-covered summits, that have either never been explored, or only very rarely, by the adventurous hunter. Others there are quite inaccessible; and it is needless to say, that the highest peaks – such as Chumulari, Kinchinjunga, Donkia, Dawalghisi, and the like – are far beyond the reach of even the most daring climber. Perhaps no one has ever ascended to the height of five miles above the level of the sea; and it is a question whether at that elevation a human being could exist. At such a height it is probable that animal life would become extinct, by reason either of the extreme cold or the rarity of the atmosphere.

Though the Himalaya mountains have been known from the earliest historic times – for they are the Imaus and Emodus of the ancient writers – it is only within the present century that we in Europe have obtained any definite knowledge of them. The Portuguese and Dutch – the first European colonists of India – have told us very little about them; and even our own Anglo-Indian writers were long silent upon this interesting theme. Exaggerated accounts of the hostility and cruelty of the Himalayan highlanders – more especially the Ghoorkas – prevented private explorations; and with the exception of some half-dozen books, most of them referring to the western section of the Himalayas, and comparatively valueless, from the want of scientific knowledge on the part of their authors, this vast tract has remained almost a terra incognita up to the present time.

Of late, however, we have obtained a better acquaintance with this interesting portion of the earth’s surface. The botanist, lured thither by its magnificent flora, has opened to us a new world of vegetation. Royle and Hooker have ably achieved this task. The zoologist, equally attracted by its varied fauna, has made us acquainted with new forms of animal life. Hodgson and Wallich are the historians in this department. Scarcely less are we indebted to the sportsman and hunter – to Markham, Dunlop, and Wilson the “mountaineer.”

But in addition to these names, that have become famous through the published reports of their explorations, there are others that still remain unrecorded. The plant-hunter– the humble but useful commissioner of the enterprising nurseryman – has found his way into the Himalayas; has penetrated their most remote gorges; has climbed their steepest declivities; and wandered along the limit of their eternal snow. In search of new forms of leaf and flower, he has forded the turbid stream, braved the roaring torrent, dared the dangerous avalanche, and crossed the dread crevasse of the glistening glacier; and though no printed book may record his adventurous experience, not the less has he contributed to our knowledge of this great mountain world. His lessons may be read on the parterre, in the flowers of the purple magnolia, the deodar, the rhododendron. They may be found in the greenhouse, in the eccentric blossoms of the orchis, and curious form of the screw-pine – in the garden, in many a valuable root and fruit, destined ere long to become favourites of the dessert-table. It is ours to chronicle the story of an humble expedition of this kind – the adventures of a young plant-hunter, the employé of an enterprising “seedsman” well-known in the world’s metropolis.

Chapter Two.

A view from Chumulari

Our scene lies in the very heart of the Himalayas – in that district of them least explored by English travellers, though not the most distant from the Anglo-Indian capital, Calcutta. Almost due north of this city, and in that portion of the Himalayan ranges embraced by the great bend of the Burrampooter, may be found the spot upon which our interest is to be fixed. Literally may it be termed a spot, when compared in superficies with the vast extent of wilderness that surrounds it – a wilderness of bleak, barren ridges, of glistening glaciers, of snow-clad summits, soaring one above another, or piled incongruously together like cumuli in the sky.

In the midst of this chaos of rock, ice, and snow, Chumulari raises his majestic summit, crowned and robed in white, as becomes his sacred character. Around are other forms, his acolytes and attendants, less in stature, but mighty mountains nevertheless, and, like him, wearing the vestment of everlasting purity.

Could you stand upon the top of Chumulari, you would have under your eye, and thousands of feet below your feet, the scene of our narrative – the arena in which its various incidents were enacted. Not so unlike an amphitheatre would that scene appear – only differing from one, in the small number of the dramatis persona, and the entire absence of spectators.

From the top of Chumulari, looking down among the foot hills of this majestic mountain, you might behold a valley of a singular character – so singular as at once to fix your attention. You would note that it is of a regular oval shape; and that instead of being bounded by sloping declivities, it is girt by an almost vertical cliff that appears to be continuous all around it. This cliff of dark granitic rock you might guess with your eye to rise several hundred feet sheer from the bottom of the valley. If it were in the season of summer, you might further observe, that receding from its brow a dark-coloured declivity of the mountain rises still higher, terminating all around in peaks and ridges – which, being above the snow-line are continually covered with the pale white mantle that has fallen upon them from the heavens.

These details would be taken in at the first glance; and then your eye would wander into the valley below, and rest there – fixed by the singularity of the scene, and charmed by its soft loveliness – so strongly contrasting with the rude surroundings on which you had been hitherto gazing.

The form of the valley would suggest the existence of the grand elliptical crater of some extinct volcano. But instead of the black sulphuric scoria, that you might expect to see strewed over its base, you behold a verdant landscape of smiling loveliness, park-like plains interposed with groves and copses, here and there a mound of rock-work, as if piled artificially and for ornament. Around the cliffs appears a belt of forest of darker green; and occupying the centre a limpid lake, on whose silver surface at a certain hour of the day you might see reflected part of the snow-crowned summit on which you are standing – the cone of Chumulari itself.

With a good glass you might distinguish quadrupeds of several species straying over the verdant pastures; birds of many kinds upon the wing, and others disporting themselves upon the surface of the lake.

You would be tempted to look for a grand mansion. You would send your glance in every direction, expecting to see chimneys and turrets overtopping the trees; but in this you would be disappointed.

On one side of the valley, near to the base of its bounding cliff, you might see a white vapour ascending from the surface of the earth. It would be an error to believe it smoke. It is not that – only the rime rising over a hot-spring bubbling out from the rocks and forming the little rivulet, that, like a silver string, connects it with the lake.

Charmed with the view of this lovely valley, you would desire to visit it. You would descend the long slope of Chumulari, and straggling through the labyrinth of rugged foot hills that surround it, you would reach the brow of the bounding precipice; but there you must come to a halt. No path leads downward; and if you are still determined to set foot on the shores of that smiling lake, you will have to make the descent of the cliffs by means of a rope or rope-ladder several hundred feet in length.

With comrades to help you, you may accomplish this; but once in the valley, you can only get out of it by remounting your rope-ladder: for you will find no other means of exit.

At one end of the valley you may perceive a gap in the cliffs; and fancy that through this you may make your way out to the side of the mountain. The gap may be easily reached, by going up a gentle acclivity; but having passed through it, you will discover that it only guides you into a gorge, like the valley itself, bounded on both sides by precipitous cliff’s. This gorge is half filled by a glacier; on the surface of which you may pass for a certain distance downward. At the end of that descent you will find the glacier cut by a deep crevasse, a hundred feet in depth and a hundred in width. Without bridging the crevasse, you can go no further; and if you did succeed in bridging it, further down you would find others deeper and wider, over which it would be impossible for you to pass.

Return then, and examine the singular valley into which you have made your way. You will find there trees of many kinds, quadrupeds of many kinds, birds of many kinds, and insects of many kinds – you will find every form of animal life, except that of the human being. If you find not man, however, you may discover traces of him. Close to the hot-spring, and forming a sort of “lean-to” against the cliff, you may observe a rude hut built with blocks of stone, and plastered with mud from the bed of the rivulet. Enter it. You will find it empty, cold, untenanted by living thing. No furniture. Stone couches covered with sedge and grass, upon which men may have slept or lain; and two or three blocks of granite upon which they may have sat. That is all. Some pieces of skin hanging around the walls, and the bones of animals strewed over the ground outside, give a clue to the kind of food upon which the inhabitants of the hut may have subsisted. Hunters they must have been. That will be your natural conjecture.

But how did they get into this valley, and how got they out of it? Of course, like yourself, they descended into it, and then ascended out again, by means of a rope-ladder.

That would be the explanation at which you would arrive; and it would be a satisfactory one, but for a circumstance that just now comes under your observation.

Scanning the façade of the cliff, your eye is arrested by a singular appearance. You perceive a serried line, or rather a series of serried lines, running from the base in a vertical direction. On drawing nearer to these curious objects, you discover them to be ladders – the lowest set upon the earth, and reaching to a ledge, upon which the second is rested; this one extending to a second ledge, on which the third ladder finds support; and so on throughout a whole series of six.

At first sight, it would appear to you as if the ci-devant denizens of the hut had made their exodus from the valley by means of these ladders; and such would be the natural conviction, but for a circumstance that forbids belief in this mode of exit: the ladders do not continue to the top of the cliff! A long space, which would require two or three more such ladders to span it, still intervenes between the top of the highest and the brow of the precipice; and this could not have been scaled without additional ladders. Where are they? It is scarcely probable they had been drawn up; and had they fallen back into the valley, they would still be there. There are none upon the ground.

But these conjectures do not require to be continued. A short examination of the cliff suffices to convince you that the design of scaling it by ladders could not have succeeded. The ledge against which rests the top of the highest must have been found too narrow to support another; or rather, the rocks above and projecting over would render it impossible to place a ladder upon this ledge. It is evident that the scheme had been tried and abandoned.

The very character of the attempt proves that they who had made it must have been placed in a desperate situation – imprisoned within that cliff-girt valley, with no means of escaping from it, except such as they themselves might devise.

Moreover, after a complete exploration of the place, you can find no evidence that they ever did escape from their strange prison; and your thoughts can only shape themselves into conjectures, as to who they were that had wandered into this out-of-the-way corner of the world; how they got into, and how out of it; and, finally, whether they ever succeeded in getting out at all. Your conjectures will come to an end, when you have read the history of the Cliff-climbers.

Chapter Three.

The Plant-Hunter and his companions

Karl Linden, a young German student, who had taken part in the revolutionary struggles of 1848, had by the act of banishment sought an asylum in London. Like most refugees, he was without means; but, instead of giving himself up to idle habits, he had sought and obtained employment in one of those magnificent “nurseries” which are to be met with in the suburbs of the world’s metropolis. His botanical knowledge soon attracted the attention of his employer, the proprietor of the nursery – one of those enterprising and spirited men who, instead of contenting themselves with merely cultivating the trees and flowering-plants already introduced into our gardens and greenhouses, expend large sums of money in sending emissaries to all parts of the earth, to discover and bring home other rare and beautiful kinds.

These emissaries – botanical collectors, or “plant-hunters,” as they may be called – in the pursuit of their calling, have explored, and are still engaged in exploring, the wildest and most remote countries of the globe – such as the deep, dark forests upon the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Oregon in America; the hot equatorial regions of Africa; the tropical jungles of India; the rich woods of the Oriental islands; and, in short, wherever there is a prospect of discovering and obtaining new floral or sylvan beauties.

The exploration of the Sikhim Himalaya by the accomplished botanist, Hooker – recorded in a book of travels not inferior to that of the great Humboldt – had drawn attention to the rich and varied flora of these mountains; and in consequence of this, the enterprising “seedsman” who had given Karl Linden temporary employment in his garden, promoted him to a higher and more agreeable field of labour, by sending him as a “plant-hunter” to the Thibetan Himalayas.

Accompanied by his brother, Caspar, the young botanist proceeded to Calcutta; and, after a short residence there, he set out for the Himalayas – taking a direction almost due north from the city of the Ganges.

He had provided himself with a guide, in the person of a celebrated Hindoo hunter or “shikaree,” called Ossaroo; and this individual was the sole attendant and companion of the two brothers – with the exception of a large dog, of the boar-hound species, which had been brought with them from Europe, and that answered to the name of Fritz.

The young botanist had come to India furnished with a letter of introduction to the manager of the Botanical Garden of Calcutta – an establishment of world-wide renown. There he had been hospitably received on his arrival in the Oriental city; and during his sojourn he had spent much of his time within its boundaries. Moreover, the authorities of the place, interested in his expedition, had given him all the information in their power as to the route he intended pursuing – though that was not much: for the portion of the Himalayas he was about to explore was at that time a terra incognita to Englishmen – even in the city of Calcutta!

It is not necessary here to detail the many adventures that befel our plant-hunter and his party, during the progress of their journey towards the Himalayas, and after they had entered within the grand gorges of these mountains. Suffice it to say, that in pursuit of a beautiful little animal – a “musk-deer” – they had gone up a gully filled by one of those grand glaciers so common in the higher Himalayas; that the pursuit had led them far up the ravine, and afterwards conducted them into a singular crater-like valley – the one already described; that once in this valley, they could find no way out of it, but by the ravine through which they had entered; and that on returning to make their exit, they discovered to their great consternation that a crevasse in the glacier, over which they had passed, had opened during their absence, and to such an extent as to render their exit impossible!

They had endeavoured to span this crevasse; and had spent much time in making a bridge of pine-trees for the purpose. They had succeeded at length in getting across the chasm – but only to find others in the glacier below, which no ingenuity could enable them to get over.

They were compelled to abandon the idea, and return again to the valley; which, though lovely to the eye, had now become hateful to their thoughts: since they knew it to be their prison.

During their residence in the place, many adventures befel them with wild animals of various kinds. There chanced to be a small herd of “yâks,” or grunting oxen, in the valley; and these formed for a time the staple article of their food. Caspar, who, though younger than Karl, was the more skilled hunter of the two, had a very narrow escape from the old yâk bull; though he succeeded at length in killing the dangerous animal. Ossaroo was very near being eaten up by a pack of wild dogs – every one of which he afterwards succeeded in killing; and Ossaroo was also in danger of being swallowed up by an enemy of a very different kind – that is by a quicksand, into which he had got his legs while engaged in taking fish out of a net!

Karl was not without his hair-breadth “’scape” – having been chased by a bear along a ledge of the cliff, from which he was compelled to make a most perilous descent. The bear itself took refuge in a cave, where it was afterwards pursued and killed, by all three acting in concert, materially assisted by the dog Fritz. They had incurred great risk in this chase of the bear: for although they had succeeded in destroying the formidable animal they lost themselves in the great labyrinthine cavern, and were only able to find their way out by making a fire with the stocks of their guns, and rendering the bear’s-grease available for candles – which fortunately enabled them to extricate themselves.

During the pursuit of the bear, and their subsequent endeavours to find their way out, our adventurers had been struck by the enormous dimensions of the cavern in which the animal had taken refuge; and in the hope that some of its great galleries might lead out through the mountain, and offer them a way of escape from the valley, they had made torches, and explored it from end to end. It was all to no purpose; and becoming satisfied that there was no exit by way of the cavern, they had at length desisted from the search.

From this point shall we continue, in more circumstantial detail, the history of their attempts to escape from their mountain prison; which they were now convinced could only be done by climbing the cliff that encircled it.