erent directions as there are points in the compass.

Within the circumference of this vast mountain tract there is great
variety of climate, soil, and productions. Among the lower hills--those
contiguous to the plains of India--as well as in some of the more
profound valleys of the interior--the flora is of a tropical or
subtropical character. The palm, the tree fern, and bamboo here
flourish in free luxuriance. Higher up appears the vegetation of the
temperate zone, represented by forests of gigantic oaks of various
species, by sycamores, pines, walnut, and chestnut trees. Still higher
are the rhododendrons, the birches, and heaths; succeeded by a region of
herbaceous vegetation--by slopes, and even table-plains, covered with
rich grasses. Stretching onward and upward to the line of the eternal
snow, there are encountered the _Cryptogamia_--the lichens and mosses of
Alpine growth--just as they are found within the limits of the polar
circle; so that the traveller, who passes from the plains of India
towards the high ridges of the Himalayas, or who climbs out of one of
the deeper valleys up to some snow-clad summit that surmounts it, may
experience within a journey of a few hours' duration every degree of
climate, and observe a representative of every species of vegetation
known upon the face of the earth!

The Himalayas are not uninhabited. On the contrary, one considerable
kingdom (Nepaul), with many petty states and communities (as Bhotan,
Sikhim, Gurwhal, Kumaon, and the famed Cashmere), are found within their
boundaries--some enjoying a sort of political independence, but most of
them living under the protection either of the Anglo-Indian empire, on
the one side, or that of China upon the other. The inhabitants of these
several states are of mixed races, and very different from the people of
Hindostan. Towards the east--in Bhotan and Sikhim--they are chiefly of
the Mongolian stock, in customs and manners resembling the people of
Thibet, and, like them, practising the religion of the Lamas. In the
western Himalayas there is an admixture of Ghoorka mountaineers, Hindoos
from the south, Sikhs from Lahore, and Mahometans from the old empire of
the Moguls; and here, also, are to be found, in full profession, the
three great representative religions of Asia--Mahometan, Buddhist, and
Brahmin.

The population, however, is exceedingly small compared with the surface
over which it is distributed; and there are ma