Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 254 (Color Image)

0254	Among the Celestials : vol.1

2I2 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. VIII.

recede the nearer I approached it. One rise

after another I surmounted, thinking it would

prove the summit. The valley was wide and

open, and the going perfectly easy, leading

sometimes over round boulders, but more often

loose soil. At length I reached a small lake,

about a quarter of a mile in length, and a small

rise above it at the farther end was the last one

of all and the summit of the pass was reached.

I rushed up, and there before me lay the

" other side," and surely no view which man

has ever seen can excel that. To describe the

scene in words would be impossible. There

are no words with which to do so, and to

attempt it with those that are at our disposal

would but stain its simple grandeur and mag-

nificence.

Before me rose tier after tier of stately

mountains, among the highest in the world

peaks of untainted snow, whose summits reached

to heights of twenty-five thousand, twenty-six

thousand, and, in one supreme case, twenty-

eight thousand feet above sea-level. There

was this wonderful array of mountain majesty

set out before me across a deep rock-bound

valley, and away in the distance, filling up the

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