Residences, churches, hotels and all public and private buildings lie in a semi-circle on the western slope of one of the mountains, offering a very fine picture. Excellent roads are built in zigzag form up and down over hills and mountains. There are scarcely any carriages but a kind of palanquin called dandies, and small ponies which are so sure-footed that they can climb up and down the mountains like goats. Both men and women ride these or are carried by three strong bearers from Thibet. Darjieling is elevated eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and at this place black clouds may often be seen sweeping along the western side far below one's feet. The air is so clear, fresh and salubrious that it seems to infuse new strength, vitality and almost new life. It impels either to activity or to sleep; it is impossible to sit still or be mentally inactive. The view of the landscape below is claimed to be the most beautiful in the whole world. Beneath the terraces on which we walk are seen smiling valleys, one below another, away down far into the plains of Bengal, variegated by rivers, forests, cities and many-colored fields, and far away to the distant north against the blue horizon, one great mountain rises above and beyond another, capped with eternal crowns of snow high up among the restless clouds--twenty thousand feet higher than Darjieling, and twenty-nine thousand feet above the sea,--over five miles in height. The loftiest peaks are Kinchinjunga forty-five miles, and Mount Everest, sixty miles distant from Darjieling. It is claimed that these peaks can be seen for a distance of three hundred miles in clear weather. There these mighty giants stand clad in snowy garbs, like sentinels at the portals of infinite space, seemingly belonging more to heaven than to earth. No wonder that the Hindoos look at them with solemn awe, for cold and insensible to beauty and grandeur must he be, who does not, at this sight, feel his own littleness and the inconceivable greatness of the creator. CHAPTER XXIV. Cholera and other Diseases--The Causes of Cholera--How the Soldiers are Protected Against it--Sudden Deaths--Fevers--The Teraj--Contempt for Death--The Cholera Hospital--The Sisters of Mercy--The Princes Tagore--Hindoo Family Customs--Hindoo Gallantry--A Hindoo Fête.