on which the white monkeys were playing their gambols.
Tigers used to be very common and mischievous; but since the
English have begun to frequent the country, they have become very
scarce. There are many wolves and bears, and some chamois, two of
which passed near us. After wending up

'A wild romantic chasm, that slanted
Down the steep hill athwart a cedar cover--
A savage place, as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath the waning moon was haunted
By woman's wailing for her demon lover,'

we arrived at the gorge of the Pass, in an indent between the two
principal summits of Mount Gaughur, near 8600 feet above the sea.
And now the snowy mountains, which had been so long eclipsed,
opened upon us in full magnificence. To describe a view of this
kind is only lost labour: and I found it nearly as impossible to
make a sketch of it. Nundidevi was immediately opposite, Kedar
Nath was not visible, but Marvo was visible as a distant peak. The
eastern mountains, for whom I could procure no name, rose into
great consequence, and were very glorious objects as we wound down
the hill on the other side. The guides could only tell us they
were a great way off, and on the borders of the Chinese empire.
Nundidevi, the highest peak in the world, is 25,689 feet above the
sea, 4000 higher than Chimborazo. Bhadinath and Kedernath, which
are merely summits of it, are 22,300 feet high. They are all in
the British dominions."--(_Heber's India_, Vol. ii. pp. 193-194,
209.)

On comparing the descriptions of the most interesting objects in
Europe and Asia--Greece and the Himalaya range--by these two
distinguished British travellers, with the pictures given by Humboldt
of the Andes, the falls of the Orinoco, the forests of the same river,
and the expanse of the Pampas in South America, every one must admit
the great superiority of the German's powers of painting Nature.
Neither Clarke nor Heber appear to attempt it. They tell you, indeed,
that certain scenes were grand and beautiful, certain rocks wild,
certain glens steep; but they make no attempt to portray their
features, or convey to the reader's mind the pictures which they tell
you are for ever engraven on their own. This is a very great defect,
so great indeed that it will probably prevent their works, how
valuable soever as books of authority or reference, from ever
acquiring lasting f