Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
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Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
[91] Called Tsungau by the Bhoteeas. Junnoo is called Kumbo~Kurma by
the Hill-men of Nepal.
From 4 to 5 p.m. the temperature was 24°, with a very cold wind; the
elevation by the barometer was 15,260 feet, and the dew-point 10.5°,
giving the humidity 0·610, and the amount of vapour 1·09 grains in a
cubic foot of air; the same elements at Calcutta, at the same hour,
being thermometer 66·5°, dew-point 60·5°, humidity 0·840, and weight of
vapour 5·9 grains.
I waited for an hour, examining the rocks about the pass, till the
coolies should come up, but saw nothing worthy of remark, the natural
history and geology being identical with those of Kambachen pass: I
then bade adieu to the sublime and majestic peak of Junnoo. Thence we
continued at nearly the same level for about four miles, dipping into
the broad head of a snowy valley, and ascending to the second pass,
which lay to the south-east.
On the left I passed a very curious isolated pillar of rock, amongst
the wild crags to the north-east, whose bases we skirted: it resembles
the Capuchin on the shoulder of Mont Blanc, as seen from the Jardin.
Evening overtook us while still on the snow near the last ascent. As
the sun declined, the snow at our feet reflected the most exquisitely
delicate peach-bloom hue; and looking west from the top of the pass,
the scenery was gorgeous beyond description, for the sun was just
plunging into a sea of mist, amongst some cirrhi and stratus, all in a
blaze of the ruddiest coppery hue. As it sank, the Nepal, peaks to the
right assumed more definite, darker, and gigantic forms, and floods of
light shot across the misty ocean, bathing the landscape around me in
the most wonderful and indescribable changing tints. As the luminary
was vanishing, the whole horizon glowed like copper run from a smelting
furnace, and when it had quite disappeared, the little inequalities of
the ragged edges of the mist were lighted up and shone like a row of
volcanos in the far distance. I have never before or since seen
anything, which for sublimity, beauty, and marvellous effects, could
compare with what I gazed on that evening from Choonjerma pass. In some
of Turner’s pictures I have recognized similar effects, caught and
fixed by a marvellous effort of genius; such are the fleeting hues over
the ice, in his “Whalers,” and the ruddy fire in his “Wind, Steam, and
Rain,” which one almost fears to touch. Dissolving views give some idea
of the magic creation and dispersion of the effects, but any
combination of science and art can no more recall the scene, than it
can the feelings of awe that crept over me, during the hour I spent in
solitude amongst these stupendous mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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