so great and earnest as compared with its cruel narrow bounds, that we are drawn towards them as to something almost surpassing human nature in confiding simplicity and faithful tenderness. No active feeling of this kind can be called forth by the innumerable forms of beauty which rise around us from the vegetable world. They adorn our gardens and clothe our hillsides, giving joy to the simplest maiden, yet directing the winds and rains, and purifying the great expanses of air. So far as humanity, so dependent upon them, is concerned, they are silent; no means of communication exist between us; and silently, unremonstrantly, they answer to our care or indifference for them, by reproducing, in apparently careless abundance, their more beautiful or noxious forms. But we cannot say that they are not sentient, or even conscious, beings. The expanding of flowers to the light, and the contraction of some to the touch, indicate a highly sentient nature; and in the slow, cruel action of carnivorous plants, there is something approaching to the fierce instincts of the brute world. Wordsworth, than whom no poet more profoundly understood the life of nature, touched on this subject when he said "Through primrose turfs, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there." If anything of this kind exists, how great and grave must be the sentient feeling of the mighty pines and cedars of the Himálaya! There is a considerable variety of them,-as the Pinus excelsa, or the "weeping fir," which, though beautiful, is hardly deserving of its aspiring name; the Pinus longifolia, or Cheel tree, the most abundant of all; the Pinus Khutrow, or Picea Morinda, which almost rivals the deodars in height; and the Pinus Morinda, or Abies Pindrow, the "silver fir," which attains the greatest height of all. But, excelling all these, is the Cedrus deodara, the Deodar or Kedron tree. There was something very grand about these cedars of the Sutlej valley, sometimes forty feet in circumference, and rising almost to two hundred feet, or half the height of St Paul's, on nearly precipitous slopes, and on the scantiest soil, yet losing no line of beauty in their stems and their graceful pendent branches, and with their tapering stems and green arrowy spikes covered by a clinging trellis - work of Virginia creepers and clematis still in white bloom. These silent giants of a world which is not our own, but which we carelessly use as our urgent wants demand, had owed nothing to the cultivating care of man. Fed by the snow-rills, and by the dead lichens and strong grass which once found life on the debris of gneiss and mica-slate, undisturbed by the grubbing of wild animals, and as undesirable in their tough green wood when young as unavailable in their fuller growth for the use of the puny race of mankind which grew up around them, they were free, for countless centuries, to seek air and light and moisture, and to attain the perfect stature which they now present, but which is unlikely to be continued now that they are exposed to the axes of human beings who can turn them " to use." If, as the Singalese assert, the cocoa - nut palm withers away when beyond the reach of the human voice, it is easy to conceive how the majestic deodar must delight in being beyond our babblement. Had Camoens seen this cedar he might have said of it, even more appro priately than he has done of the cypress, that it may be a "Preacher to the wise, Lessening from earth her spiral honours rise, Till, as a spear-point reared, the topmost spray, The deodar is found in the Himálaya between 5000 and 9000 feet high, and, except in the higher regions, where it wants heat, it prefers the shady northern and eastern slopes of the mountains. The cedar forests of the Sutlej are the most extensive and valuable of India; but they are to be found along the whole line of the Western Himalaya, and afford a most valuable wood for building and railway purposes. The conservancy of these forests has engaged the attention of the Forest Department, and they are well cared for in British India; but in Kashmir and some other of the native states they are recklessly destroyed, so as to leave no provision for the propagation of the trees. The deodar is believed to be of the same species as the cedar of Lebanon, and a good many young specimens of it are now to be found in this country; but they are not planted here on steep hillsides, which afford their usual habitat in the Himálaya. I found several young deodars in the valley of the Thames in the garden of the author of 'Alice Lorraine,' and he informs me that they are liable to suffer much from frost in this country. The view from Chini and Pangay of the Raldang Kailas, one portion of the great Indian Kailas, or Abode of the Gods, is very magnificent; but I shall speak of that when treating generally of the various groups of the higher Himálaya. The bungalow of Chini which Lord Dalhousie occupied is still there, and was under repair; but at all times it is reserved, and travellers are expected to go on from Rogi to Pangay. Chini has about a hundred acres of nearly level ground, and that is its distinguishing feature; but it is also famous for its grapes. At Pangay there is a large good bungalow; and the Hindústhan and Tibet road there comes to an end, so far as it is a cut road, or, indeed, a path on which paid labour of any kind is expended. It is entirely protected by the Kailas from the Indian monsoon; and I found a portion of it occupied by Captain and Mrs Henderson, who wisely preferred a stay there to one in the more exposed and unhealthy hill-stations, though it was so far from society, and from most of the comforts of life. CHAPTER XII. A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL. END OF THE CUT ROAD-THE MORANG KAILAS-RARANG-FOAMCASCADES-GRANITE AVALANCHES- TURNING A CORNER JANGI-A PRAYING-MILL-LIPPE-AUTHOR'S ILLNESS-POISONING IN INDIA, THE easiest way from Pangay to Lippe is over the Werung Pass, 12,400 feet; but Captain Henderson, on his returning from a shooting excursion, reported so much snow upon it that I determined to go up the valley of the Sutlej, winding along the sides of the steep but still pine-covered mountains on its right bank. So, on the 28th June, after a delay of a few days in order to recruit and prepare, I bade adieu to civilisation, as represented in the persons of the kind occupants of the bungalow at Pangay, and fairly started for tent-life. A very short experience of the "road" was sufficient to stagger one, and to make me cease to wonder at the retreat of two young cavalry officers I met, a few days before, on their way back to Simla, and who had started from Pangay with some intention of going to Shipki, but gave up the attempt after two miles' experience of the hard road they would have to travel. The great Hindústhan and Tibet affair was bad enough, but what was this I had come to? For a few miles it had once been a cut road, but years and grief had made it worse than the ordinary native paths. At some places it was impass |