The loftiest peaks being bare of snow gives great variety of colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes is at all times magnificent. During the day, the stupendous size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness of their distant outline melting into the pale blue sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is described as a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of the earth and snow-light, the effect is of unparalleled solemnity, and no language can describe the splendour of the sunbeams at daybreak streaming between the high peaks, and throwing their gigantic shadows on the mountains below. There, far above the habitation of man, no living thing exists, no sound is heard; the very echo of the traveller’s footsteps startles him in the awful solitude and silence that reigns in these august dwellings of everlasting snow. Nature has in mercy mitigated the intense rigour of the cold in these high lands in a degree unexampled in other mountainous regions. The climate is mild, the valleys are verdant and inhabited, corn and fruit ripen at elevations which in other countries—even under the equator— would be buried in permanent snow. It is also a peculiarity in these mountains that the higher the range the higher likewise is the limit of snow and vegetation. On the southern slopes of the first range, Mr. Gerard found cultivation 10,000 feet above the sea, though it was often necessary to reap the corn still green and unripe; while in Chinese Tartary good crops are raised 16,000 feet above the sea. Captain Gerard saw pasture and low bushes up to 17,009 feet; and corn as high as even 18,544 feet, which is 2784 feet higher than the top of Mont Blanc, and 1279 feet above the snow-line in the province of Quito under the equator. Birch-trees with tall stems grow at the elevation of 14,068 feet, and the vine and other fruits thrive in the valleys of these high plains. The temperature of the earth probably has some influence on the vegetation: as many hot springs exist in the Himalaya at great heights, there must be a source of heat below these mountains, which in some places comes near the surface, and possibly may be connected with the volcanic fires in the central chains of the table-land. Hot springs abound in the valley of Jumnotra; and as it is well known that many plants thrive in very cold air if their roots are well protected, it may be the cause of pine-trees thriving at great elevations in that valley, and of the splendid forests of the deodar, a species of cypress that grows to gigantic size even in the snow.