KUNCHINGUNGA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1948, 25 June 1891, Page 35

KUNCHINGUNGA.

THE OBBAX SNOWY MOUNTAIN Or INDIA. — THE BEAUTIES OB 1 THE GBEAT BANGE OF THE HIMALAYAS— TBAVELLINO INTO THE HILL BEOION.

Dabjbeling (India), March 5, 1891.

Only with the illimitable sea and the starry heavens can the snow-covered heights of the Himalayas be compared. The Alps are supremely beautiful ; the " Five Treasures of the Snow," as'the masses of Kunchingunga are called, are "supremely sublime. The one is like the cremations of tbe stupendous genius of a Michael Angelo, the other of a Raphael. They are the literal expression of God's splendour and majesty — the veritable pavilion of his everlasting throne. Forty-five miles distant, through the opal-coloured air of midday or through the amber light of sunset, they seem so near that an arrow might reach them. Filling the sky at the north, the full moon hblds watch and guard over their unapproachable solitude, while the morning star is fading into the crimson dawn and the glorious sun rises from the sea-like plains of Kutch-Behar at the east. Between the north and the east extend the jagged snowcovered heights of the Thibetan Himalayas, where the lofty pass of Donkia, the highest in the world, comes down from above like the curve of a parabola. The snow line is 17,000 ft high, rising above thejsnowy^ills, which form many a curve and wooded summit in the vast extent of foreground. Only last summer two German travellers ascended to 20,500 ft, but then Kanchin towered 8000 ft above, with inaccessible mountains and impassable valleys between, while Everest is nearly 1000 ft higher. There is no symmetry in tbe form of these lofty walls of the earth and sky. One imagines that that is the quality of lesser things when standing face to face with these mountains, perfect in their vastness and grandeur.

Kunchin has its equivalent in the Latin "quinque," and both seem to be from the same root ; while the literal signification of Gunga is tbe "treasures of the snow," as already stated. En route to or from Darjeeling, where our observations were made, these mountains are seen to be five detached masses of glittering snow. There, however, they seem brought together into

A WONDEBFUL SISTEBHOOJ*. a great combination. They have also different names, though Kunchin is applied to the highest, and these names have a musical sound applied by mortal lips to that which in its own personality is unnamable — Jaun, Kabin, Chumabari, Panhanri — to which add " gunga."

Not these five mountains, but hundreds of others, are enormous masses ef bare rock, with only a sprinkling of snow upon their sloping shelves, yet this sprinkling of snow may be great glaciers, thousands of feet in depth. Kunchin is itielf divided by a lofty opening into too jagged summits, while immense walls, like the ridges of the Matterhorn, divide the steep incline - toward Darjeeling into two pyramidal forms, whose outlined are lost in the mountain's holding guard around though really scores of miles away. The great fissures which are kriown to exist at the summit of Mount Everest have been dosed by the snows of many millenniums, so that it presents a rounded summit, as seen in the far north-west: But no snows have rounded the summit of Kunchingunga ; it shows most distinctly the form of its granite walls and vast boulders, though lying enshrouded in the dazzling whiteness that has fallen upon them from che sky. It is said that the most violent winds rage around these summits, which may prevent the softening and rounding process of the snows. However that may be they are much more impressive in their irregular and broken forms than they could otherwise be. j AN INDIAN SUBPBISE. The visitor to Darjeeling goes out for a view of the mountains, especially in the early morning, when the stars are still in the sky, and the first suggestion of the day is appearing in the saffron tinted east. Then the valleys may ba rivers of white j mist, and all nearer objects dimly seen in the shadows ; or the vast distance between the observer and the snow-line may be a sea of mist, lightly stirred by the breeze, but seeming to be tossed and upheaved by some force working beneath. The air changes .from purple to grey and to opal ; the moon grows pale in a western sky changing from blue to amber and from amber to crimson. The Thibetan Mountains are outlined as grey rock and snowy summits against a sky of robin's egg blue, or purple and golden clouds form across them. The star of the dawn vanishes quickly as Kunchin bows bis head to the first kiss of the sun, and a rosy glow spreads from peak to peak, as the mountains in the order of their heights come out to do homage t» the King of Day. Deep shadows fall toward the west, as the mountains throw ofi th?ir night-robes of greyish white and corao forth in the shining garments of the royal morn. The great hills, too, awake from their slumber, and along thsir wooded sides and ridges thin mists arise, bringing one hill against another in delicate relief. Birds' songs are in the air, not a full, universal chorus, but. clear, distinct bursts of song, now from one hill and then from another. As the minutes pass on and the sun rises higher, a cloud rises above Kuncbin's lofty brow, and the valley mists rise, but do not disappear. The hills change to purple and to olive-green. Before 10 o'clock the clouds ha%a rolled together. Thibet is completely hidden, and at the north only snow-covered masse 3 rise above the clouds, soon to be entirely obscured, md our gaze Teturns to the lower world, to the beauty of this hill station of Darjeeling. The train moves with tremendous -jerks, and the engine, which Carries the coal above the boiler, is continually wheezing for the want of water which is srppliei by mountain streams. It is a wonderful piece of railroading, however, this Darjeeling and Himalayan railroad, and both Englishmen and educated natives pay a high compliment, perhaps unconsciously, when they say that " even Americans are astonished at the engineering skill displayed." There is no tunnelling, but a zig-zag climbing of the mountains, with sharp turns and wonderful loops where the road doubles upon itself like the threads of a screw, and reversing 3, where we go backward and forward, accomplishing thus an asoe.ot of 4Ctt or 60ft.

At times we look down npon the plains of Northern India, with their many rivers and villages and forests of trees; again upon lines of valleys' whose slopes are covered with the short, stubby shrub of the tea plant, belonging to the endless plantations. Then we skirt precipices, sweep suddenly upon the very edge of chasms ; again we find ourselves in forest glades, with a carpet of mosses and dead leaves ; oftentimes we look into a narrow chasm through which tumbles a foaming waterfall — a place almost terrible in its wealth of savage luxuriance, where trees are knitted into a mass by creeping plants which throw long branches into the air, or snake-like air roo*s ; where the air is so dense with poisonous vapours as to be almost visible to the eye and palpable to the touch, and where lurks the spotted leopard or the deadly serpent. BEAUTIFUL AND PBAGBANT FLOWEBS — THE PEASANTS. The jangles of India cannot be described; the wildest of them have not yet known the foot of man. Edwin Arnold says " that in these natural and delicious solitudes the dreamy, placid, metaphysical East seems to brood over the silence — that spirit which Shelley embodies in his "Prometheus Unbound":

Asia I ttaou Light of Life I Shadow of beauty unbeheld. Here it is that one may study plant life in its wildest luxuriance and infinite variety. Even this winter season breaks forth into blossoming. On the hotel table I see clusters of flowers, which at first sight I think is the trailing arbutus — the glory of our Eastern spring in the United States. Its fragrance is just as delicate. I take a branch, and while the flower cluster it similar, the foliage is different. I afterward find it growing on great shrubs among tbe Darjeeling hills. Peach trees are in bloom among the tea shrubs, wild roses shower pink petals npon us from lofty rocks, the palms give way to magnificent tree ferns, growing singly and in groups among the rooks, while exquisite evergreens and mosses veil the rooks and the soft earth where the dews are perpetual. We caught no glimpse of the snows on the night of cur arrival, for the fog came thickly down npon us, giving us only occasional glimpses of wild hill beauty in the distance, bat enhancing, as in the Scotch Highlands, the nearer views. We pass many native villages with their thatched huts and groups of prayer flags. Men, women, and children crowd about us, and the refrain of the latter is Invariably, " Salaam, Mem Sahib, bucksheesh 1 " These people bear in many ways a remarkable resemblance to the American Indians. There are the same small eyes, high cheek bones and broad faces, with straight, black hair and thick-set forms. Others resemble the Chinese. They are really offshoots of the Thibetans, and speak the dialects of that country, known as the Bhutia, Lepcha, Limba, &c, by which names they are known. They make the peasant population of the hills, are largely employed by the planters, and are a peaceful, industrious, bnt not intelligent people. Instead of bearing their burdens npon their heads as is the case further south, they carry them npon their .backs, sometimes in a great cloth or leather band passing over the head, or in a deep basket, broad at the top, where it is not unusual to see a couple of dirty, sleeping babies. |Thf women wear Immense earrings that are formed, by seotion after section of pieces of turquoise set in silver, and likewise amulets or strings of amulets around th« neck. Many of these are ornamental boxes or receptacles for the supposed relics of saints, or for little images or piotnres or prayer formularies, and may be worn like breastplates. Those commonly worn by the women are frequently of beautifully worked filigree .silver, embossed and ornamented with turquoise. In addition they wear curious .silver girdles, and siring after string of coral around their necks. The people of these mountains are Buddhists, or they follow a perverted, form of Bhuddism, which seems a combination of Hindu polytheism, magics, and the precepts of Gautama. This is the beginning of my experience with

THE " MOHT OS 1 ASIA," and I hope to follow it further. Just now a German gentleman, who has crossed the monntains into Thibet several times, it giving me information about the Thibetan lamas and their followers, and I hope to obtain some interesting as well as reliable information concerning them before I go away from this wonderful region.— Sabah D. Hamlin, in the San Francisco Bulletin.