The track follows a twenty-five-foot-wide driveway, the most part of which is hewn out of the solid rock, and on this highway may be seen the mountaineers from Nepaul and Thibet driving large numbers of pack animals (ponies and cattle) carrying products of Europe and America into and beyond the mountains to the peoples of northern Asia. Here and there on the green hills are the best tea plantations of India. These long, low, white buildings are the residences and factories of the planters, and close by are the dwellings of the native laborers, consisting of long rows of thatched huts, and in terraces along the steep hills are endless rows of tea bushes, among which laborers dressed in picturesque costumes of gay colors are busy picking tea, advancing in irregular lines--resembling the skirmish lines of an army. This picture is at first seen against the horizon, so far up that the men can scarcely be distinguished from the bushes, and a couple of hours later the same picture may be viewed far down in a deep valley. After awhile at the head of a long valley appear lofty, white objects whose summits rise far up above the mist and the clouds; it is the highest peaks of the Himalaya mountains, from sixty to one hundred miles distant. Thus the journey is continued up the mountains until the train finally stops at Darjieling, which is one of the most noteworthy places in the world. It is a sanitarium, and the summer residence of the government of Bengal, and during the hot season makes a favorite resort for many of the Hindoo nobles and princes as well as Europeans. The city has a few thousand inhabitants, the majority of whom are Thibetan and Nepaul mountaineers. There we see the Christian church, the Mohammedan mosque and the Hindoo temple in close proximity to each other, and on the streets one may often meet Catholic monks carrying the crucifix, and Llamas or Thibetan priests in long, brown felt mantles, turning their praying-wheel, which consists of an artistically made machine of silver, in which are engraved the following words: "Rum mahnee padme hang," which means, "Hail thee, jewel and lotus flower," or "Glory to God." [Illustration: PALACE AND TEMPLE IN THE HIMALAYAS.]