The Glaciers of Kangchenjunga

Douglas W. Freshfield
1902 Geographical Journal  
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more » ... ns rise at noon against a luminous sky, the forest ridges, stretching fold behind fold in softly undulating lines-dotted by the white specks which mark the situation of Buddhist monasteries-to the glacier-draped pinnacles and precipices of the snowy range. He passes from the zone of tree-ferns, bamboos, * Read at the Royal Goographical Society, December 9, 1901. The map illustrating Mr. Freshfield's journey will be published with an explanatory note in an early number, together with Prof. Garwood's address. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Wed, 11 Mar 2015 23:18:57 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GLACIERS OF KANGCHENJUNGA. orange-groves, and dal forests, through an endless colonnade of tallstemmed magnolias, oaks, and chestnut trees, fringed with delicate orchids and festooned by long convolvuluses, to the region of gigantic pines, junipers, firs, and larches. Down each ravine sparkles a brim- ming torrent, making the ferns and flowers nod as it dashes past them. Superb butterflies, black and blue, or flashes of rainbow colours that turn at pleasure into exact imitations of dead leaves, the fairies of this lavish transformation scene of Nature, sail in and out between the sunlight and the gloom. The mountaineer pushes on by a track half buried between the red twisted stems of tree-rhododendrons, hung with long waving lichens, until he emerges at last on open sky and the upper pastures-the alps of the Himalaya-fields of flowers: of gentians and edelweiss and poppies, which blossom beneath the shining storehouses of snow that encompass the ice-mailed and fluted shoulders of the giants of the range. If there are mountains in the world which combine as many beauties as the Sikhim Himalaya, no traveller has as yet discovered and described them for us.
doi:10.2307/1775242 fatcat:2izsl3xitnhw5mfvq7jgothgmi