loftiest seclusion. As we ascend
right up the glacier--either the one coming down from the Mustagh
Pass or the one to the east running parallel with the general line of
the Karakoram Range--we feel not only far away from but also high
above the rest of the world. And we seem to have risen to an
altogether purer region. Especially if we sleep in the open, without
any tent, with the mountains always before us, with the stars
twinkling brightly above us, do we have this sense of having
ascended to a loftier and serener world.

At the heads of these glaciers there is little else but snow and ice.
The moraines have almost disappeared--or, rather, have hardly yet
come into being. And the mountains are so deeply clothed in ice and
snow, it is only when they are extremely steep that rock appears.
The glacier-filled valley below and the mountain above are therefore
almost purely white. The atmosphere, too, is marvellously clear, so
that by day the mountains and glaciers glitter brightly in the
sunshine, and at night the stars shine out with diamond brilliance.
The effect on a moonlight night is that of fairyland. We see the
mountains as clearly as we would by the daylight of many regions,
but the light is now all silver, and the mountains not solid and
substantial but ethereal as in a vision.

The pureness of the beauty is unspotted. It is the direct opposite of
the voluptuous beauty of Kashmir. No one would come here for
repose and holiday. But we like to have been there once. We like to
have attained even once in a lifetime to a world so refined and pure.

Cold it may be--and dangerous. But we soon forget the cold. And
the dangers only string us up to meet them, so that we are in a
peculiarly alert, observant mood. And we have a secret joy in
watching Nature in her most threatening aspects and in measuring
ourselves against her.

White it may be, but not colourless. For the whiteness of the snow is
most exquisitely tinged with blue. The lakelets on the glacier are of
deepest blue. They are encircled by miniature cliffs of ice of
transparent green. The blue-ness of the sky is of a depth only seen in
the highest regions. And the snowy summits of the mountains are
tinged at sunset and dawn with finest flush of rose and primrose. So
with all the whiteness there is, too, the most delicate colouring.

Standing thus on the glacier and looking up to the snowy peaks all
round us, we think how, wholly unobserved by men, they have