Our scene lies in the very heart of the Himalayas--in that district of
them least explored by English travellers, though not the most distant
from the Anglo-Indian capital, Calcutta. Almost due north of this city,
and in that portion of the Himalayan ranges embraced by the great bend
of the Burrampooter, may be found the spot upon which our interest is to
be fixed. Literally may it be termed a spot, when compared in
superficies with the vast extent of wilderness that surrounds it--a
wilderness of bleak, barren ridges, of glistening glaciers, of snow-clad
summits, soaring one above another, or piled incongruously together like
cumuli in the sky.
In the midst of this chaos of rock, ice, and snow, Chumulari raises his
majestic summit, crowned and robed in white, as becomes his sacred
character. Around are other forms, his acolytes and attendants, less in
stature, but mighty mountains nevertheless, and, like him, wearing the
vestment of everlasting purity.
Could you stand upon the top of Chumulari, you would have under your
eye, and thousands of feet below your feet, the scene of our narrative--
the arena in which its various incidents were enacted. Not so unlike an
amphitheatre would that scene appear--only differing from one, in the
small number of the _dramatis persona_, and the entire absence of
spectators.
From the top of Chumulari, looking down among the foot hills of this
majestic mountain, you might behold a valley of a singular character--so
singular as at once to fix your attention. You would note that it is of
a regular oval shape; and that instead of being bounded by sloping
declivities, it is girt by an almost vertical cliff that appears to be
continuous all around it. This cliff of dark granitic rock you might
guess with your eye to rise several hundred feet sheer from the bottom
of the valley. If it were in the season of summer, you might further
observe, that receding from its brow a dark-coloured declivity of the
mountain rises still higher, terminating all around in peaks and
ridges--which, being above the snow-line are continually covered with
the pale white mantle that has fallen upon them from the heavens.
These details would be taken in at the first glance; and then your eye
would wander into the valley below, and rest there--fixed by the
singularity of the scene, and charmed by its soft loveliness--so
strongly contrasting with the rude surroundings on which you had been
hitherto gazing.
The form of the valley would suggest the existence of the grand
elliptical crater of some extinct volcano. But instead of the black
sulphuric _scoria_, that you might expect to see strewed over its base,
you behold a verdant landscape of smiling loveliness, park-like plains
interposed with groves and copses, here and there a mound of rock-work,
as if piled artificially and for ornament. Around the cliffs appears a
belt of forest of darker green; and occupying the centre a limpid lake,
on whose silver surface at a certain hour of the day you might see
reflected part of the snow-crowned summit on which you are standing--the
cone of Chumulari itself.
With a good glass you might distinguish quadrupeds of several _species_
straying over the verdant pastures; birds of many kinds upon the wing,
and others disporting themselves upon the surface of the lake.
You would be tempted to look for a grand mansion. You would send your
glance in every direction, expecting to see chimneys and turrets
overtopping the trees; but in this you would be disappointed.
On one side of the valley, near to the base of its bounding cliff, you
might see a white vapour ascending from the surface of the earth. It
would be an error to believe it smoke. It is not that--only the _rime_
rising over a hot-spring bubbling out from the rocks and forming the
little rivulet, that, like a silver string, connects it with the lake.
Charmed with the view of this lovely valley, you would desire to visit
it. You would descend the long slope of Chumulari, and straggling
through the labyrinth of rugged foot hills that surround it, you would
reach the brow of the bounding precipice; but there you must come to a
halt. No path leads downward; and if you are still determined to set
foot on the shores of that smiling lake, you will have to make the
descent of the cliffs by means of a rope or rope-ladder several hundred
feet in length.
With comrades to help you, you may accomplish this; but once in the
valley, you can only get out of it by remounting your rope-ladder: for
you will find no other means of exit.
At one end of the valley you may perceive a gap in the cliffs; and fancy
that through this you may make your way out to the side of the mountain.
The gap may be easily reached, by going up a gentle acclivity; but
having passed through it, you will discover that it only guides you into
a gorge, like the valley itself, bounded on both sides by precipitous
cliff's. This gorge is half filled by a glacier; on the surface of
which you may pass for a certain distance downward. At the end of that
descent you will find the glacier cut by a deep crevasse, a hundred feet
in depth and a hundred in width. Without bridging the crevasse, you can
go no further; and if you did succeed in bridging it, further down you
would find others deeper and wider, over which it would be impossible
for you to pass.
Return then, and examine the singular valley into which you have made
your way. You will find there trees of many kinds, quadrupeds of many
kinds, birds of many kinds, and insects of many kinds--you will find
every form of animal life, except that of the human being. If you find
not man, however, you may discover traces of him. Close to the
hot-spring, and forming a sort of "lean-to" against the cliff, you may
observe a rude hut built with blocks of stone, and plastered with mud
from the bed of the rivulet. Enter it. You will find it empty, cold,
untenanted by living thing. No furniture. Stone couches covered with
sedge and grass, upon which men may have slept or lain; and two or three
blocks of granite upon which they may have sat. That is all. Some
pieces of skin hanging around the walls, and the bones of animals
strewed over the ground outside, give a clue to the kind of food upon
which the inhabitants of the hut may have subsisted. Hunters they must
have been. That will be your natural conjecture.
But how did they get into this valley, and how got they out of it? Of
course, like yourself, they descended into it, and then ascended out
again, by means of a rope-ladder.
That would be the explanation at which you would arrive; and it would be
a satisfactory one, but for a circumstance that just now comes under
your observation.
Scanning the _facade_ of the cliff, your eye is arrested by a singular
appearance. You perceive a serried line, or rather a series of serried
lines, running from the base in a vertical direction. On drawing nearer
to these curious objects, you discover them to be ladders--the lowest
set upon the earth, and reaching to a ledge, upon which the second is
rested; this one extending to a second ledge, on which the third ladder
finds support; and so on throughout a whole series of six.
At first sight, it would appear to you as if the _ci-devant_ denizens of
the hut had made their exodus from the valley by means of these ladders;
and such would be the natural conviction, but for a circumstance that
forbids belief in this mode of exit: _the ladders do not continue to the
top of the cliff_! A long space, which would require two or three more
such ladders to span it, still intervenes between the top of the highest
and the brow of the precipice; and this could not have been scaled
without additional ladders. Where are they? It is scarcely probable
they had been drawn up; and had they fallen back into the valley, they
would still be there. There are none upon the ground.
But these conjectures do not require to be continued. A short
examination of the cliff suffices to convince you that the design of
scaling it by ladders could not have succeeded. The ledge against which
rests the top of the highest must have been found too narrow to support
another; or rather, the rocks above and projecting over would render it
impossible to place a ladder upon this ledge. It is evident that the
scheme had been tried and abandoned.
The very character of the attempt proves that they who had made it must
have been placed in a desperate situation--imprisoned within that
cliff-girt valley, with no means of escaping from it, except such as
they themselves might devise.
Moreover, after a complete exploration of the place, you can find no
evidence that they ever did escape from their strange prison; and your
thoughts can only shape themselves into conjectures, as to who they were
that had wandered into this out-of-the-way corner of the world; how they
got into, and how out of it; and, finally, whether they ever succeeded
in getting out at all. Your conjectures will come to an end, when you
have read the history of the _Cliff-climbers_.