of neglecting the opportunities their
country affords them for strengthening the muscles of their legs. The
traveller had need to have his shins cased if he intends to climb a hill
with a Newar mountaineer, for the path is so steep that the hillmen, as
they clamber up, frequently dislodge stones, which come tumbling down
upon those behind. However, I should have despised the blows from the
stones, and should not have cared for the fatigue of the rugged ascent,
if, on reaching the summit of the Chandernagiri, I had been rewarded with
the view which it commands in clear weather.

Colonel Kirkpatrick thus describes this glorious scene as it burst upon
him in all its magnificence:--"From hence the eye not only expatiates on
the waving valley of Nepaul, beautifully and thickly dotted with villages
and abundantly checquered with rich fields fertilized by numerous
meandering streams, but also embraces on every side a wide expanse of
charming and diversified country. It is the landscape in front, however,
that most powerfully attracts the attention--the scenery in this
direction rising to an amphitheatre, and exhibiting to the delighted view
the cities and numberless temples of the valley below, the stupendous
mountain of Sheopoori, the still supertowering Jib Jibia, clothed to its
snow-capped peak with pendulous forests, and finally the gigantic
Himaleh, forming the majestic background to this wonderful and sublime
picture."

This majestic background was now concealed behind a dense bank of clouds,
and the prospect was bounded by Sheopoori.

The snowy range is the most striking feature in Nepaul scenery, and the
most important element in its composition, since the effect produced by
the grandeur of its stupendous summits is probably unequalled.

It would be hardly fair to compare the valley in which Katmandu is
situated with any other part of the world, since it is so peculiar in its
characteristics and totally unlike the rest of the Nepaul dominions; but,
standing on the summit of Chandernagiri, and looking over the mountainous
district which stretched away to the south, and across which our road
lay, we could not but be struck by the bleak appearance of the mountains,
neither desolate nor rugged enough to possess the majesty of a bold and
sublime solitude, nor sufficiently wooded and populous to exhibit that
softer and more animating character which in the scenery of Switzerland
is no less charming than its grandeur is