h open pine forests,
picturesque hamlets, grassy pasture-lands, flowery meadows, and
clear, rushing rivers; and with the rocky crests or snow-capped
summits of the engirdling mountains always in the background.

But when we emerge from this delightful valley of the Sind River
and cross the Zoji-la Pass, we come upon a very different style of
country--bare, dreary, desolate, monotonous, uninteresting. The
forest has all disappeared, for the rainfall is here slight. The
moisture-laden clouds have precipitated themselves upon the
seaward-facing slopes of the mountains we have already passed
through. And because of this lack of rainfall the valleys are not cut
out deep, but are high and broad. It is a delightful experience to pass
from this brown, depressing landscape to the rich beauties of the
Sind Valley and Kashmir. But to make the journey the other way
round, and to pass _into_ the gloomy region after being spoilt by the
luxuries of Kashmir, is sadly disheartening at first.

The experience has, however, its advantages, for it makes us throw
off all ideas of soft ease we may have harboured in Kashmir, and
reminds us that we have to prepare ourselves to face beauties of a far
sterner kind. So we insensibly alter our whole attitude of mind, and
as we plod our way through the mountains we summon up from
within ourselves all the austerer stuff of which we are made.

We cross some easy passes of 13,000 feet or so in height. We cross
the River Indus. We reach Leh. We cross a 17,000 feet pass and then
a glacier pass of 18,000 feet, and then the watershed of India and
Central Asia by the Karakoram Pass, nearly 19,000 feet in height.
We are six hundred miles from the plains of India now, and in about
as desolate a region as the world contains. Then, bearing westward,
we make for the Aghil Pass. We have now got right in behind the
Himalaya, and as we reach the top of the Aghil Pass we look
towards the Himalaya from the Central Asian side, on what is
known as the Karakoram Range, and here at last is the remote,
secluded glacier region which has been the object of our search.

Its glory bursts upon us as we top the last rise to the Aghil Pass.
Across the deep valley is arrayed in bold and jagged outline a series
of pinnacles of ice glistening in the brilliant sunshine, showing up in
clearest definition against the intense blue sky, and rising abruptly
and incredibly high above the rock-bound Oprang River. They are
the mighty p