Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Both these are flat-topped, and dazzlingly white, rising into small peaks, and precipitous on all sides; they are grand, bold, isolated masses, quite unlike the ordinary snowy mountains in form, and far more imposing even than Kinchinjunga, though not above 22,000 feet in elevation.
I also asked in vain for some interpretation of the lines I have quoted at earlier; they said they were Lepcha worship, and that they only used them for the gratification of the people, on the day of the great festival of Kinchinjunga.
Even grander was the view directly in front of us, for there only one third as far away as Everest, royal Kinchinjunga shouldered out the sky, its colossal, granite masses, snow-covered and wind-swept, towering in dread majesty toward the very zenith.
Our fire was principally of wet rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which, being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing.
As for me, they said, I was bound to give alms, as I surely needed praying for, seeing how I exposed myself; besides my having been the first Englishman who had visited the snows of Kinchinjunga, the holiest spot in Sikkim. On the following morning we visited the unfinished temple.
The River Teesta itself, though only a minor contributor to the Brahmaputra, is nevertheless during the rainy season, when it is fed both by the falling rain and by the melting snows and glaciers of the Kinchinjunga region, impressive in its might and energy. With a force and tumult that nothing could withstand it comes swirling down the valley.
There is about Kinchinjunga the calm and repose of stupendous upward effort successfully achieved. A sense of solemn elevation comes upon us as we view the mountain. We are uplifted. The entire scale of being is raised. Our outlook on life seems all at once to have been heightened. And not only is there this sense of elevation: we seem purified also.
Its temperature at Zemu Samdong was 45 degrees to 46 degrees in June. At its junction with the Thlonok, it comes down a steep gulley from the north, foreshortened into a cataract 1000 feet high, and appearing the smaller stream of the two; whilst the Thlonok winds down from the snowy face of Kinchinjunga, which is seen up the valley, bearing W.S.W., about twenty miles distant.
Kinchinjunga bore nearly due north, a dazzling mass of snowy peaks, intersected by blue glaciers, which gleamed in the slanting rays of the rising sun, like aquamarines set in frosted silver.
I had been forewarned that the chances of seeing the high peaks at this time of the year were extremely slim; but my experience and disappointment in connection with Korea and Peking taught me to disregard such warnings; and, as it turned out, I was rewarded with a perfect day and magnificent views of Mounts Kinchinjunga and Everest, and all the other majestic heights; seen, too, in all their phases of cloud and mist, of perfectly clear blue sky, and of sunrise and sunset effects.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking