There were no lakes, but glaciers
descending ten thousand feet towards the base. There was no herbage,
only a few phanerogams on the limit of vegetable life. Down on the
lower flanks of the range were splendid forests of pines and cedars.
Here were none of the gigantic ferns and interminable parasites
stretching from tree to tree as in the thickets of the jungle. There
were no animals--no wild horses, or yaks, or Tibetan bulls.
Occasionally a scared gazelle showed itself far down the slopes.
There were no birds, save a couple of those crows which can rise to
the utmost limits of the respirable air.

The pass at last was traversed. The "Albatross" began to descend.
Coming from the hills out of the forest region there was now beneath
them an immense plain stretching far and wide.

Then Robur stepped up to his guests, and in a pleasant voice
remarked, "India, gentlemen!"

Chapter XIII

OVER THE CASPIAN

The engineer had no intention of taking his ship over the wondrous
lands of Hindustan. To cross the Himalayas was to show how admirable
was the machine he commanded; to convince those who would not be
convinced was all he wished to do.

But if in their hearts Uncle Prudent and his colleague could not help
admiring so perfect an engine of aerial locomotion, they allowed none
of their admiration to be visible. All they thought of was how to
escape. They did not even admire the superb spectacle that lay
beneath them as the "Albatross" flew along the river banks of the
Punjab.

At the base of the Himalayas there runs a marshy belt of country, the
home of malarious vapors, the Terai, in which fever is endemic. But
this offered no obstacle to the "Albatross," or, in any way, affected
the health of her crew. She kept on without undue haste towards the
angle where India joins on to China and Turkestan, and on the 29th of
June, in the early hours of the morning, there opened to view the
incomparable valley of Cashmere.

Yes! Incomparable is this gorge between the major and the minor
Himalayas--furrowed by the buttresses in which the mighty range dies
out in the basin of the Hydaspes, and watered by the capricious
windings of the river which saw the struggle between the armies of
Porus and Alexander, when India and Greece contended for Central
Asia. The Hydaspes is still there, although the two towns founded by
the Macedonian in remembrance of his victory have long since
disappeared.

During the morning the aer