Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 258 (Color Image)

0258	Among the Celestials : vol.1

216 AMONG THE CELESTIALS.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MUSTAGH PASS.

" The palaces of nature, whose vast walls

Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps

And throned eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls

The avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow !

All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

Gather around those summits, as to show

How earth may reach to heaven, yet leave vain man below."

-Byron.

THE Mustagh Pass, which we were now ap-

proaching, is on the main watershed, which

both divides the rivers of India from the rivers

of Turkestan, and also the British from the

Chinese dominions. Peaks along the water-

shed, in the vicinity of the pass, had been

fixed by trigonometrical observations from

the Indian side at 24,000, 26,00o, and as we

have seen in one case at over 28,000 feet in

height, so I could scarcely doubt that the pass

across the range must be lofty and difficult. It

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