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The class that guides the destinies of Great Britain and her dependencies is far-reaching in its anticipations as it is deep-rooted in its recollections. Quantum radice in Tartara, tantum vertice ad auras, if we may invert the poet's words.
One of these runs northward by a circuitous and comparatively easy route, through Mohmand territory to the Khyber. The second descends abruptly to the same pass through the gorge which separates the Tartara Mountain from the Rhotas Heights. The third follows the crest of those heights to their highest point, just over Ali Masjid.
It is odd therefore, that the one apposite passage which recurred to me in its entirety was in hexameters and pentameters: Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam jam tacturos sidera summa putes. Quantae diducto subsidunt aequore valles! Jam jam tacturas Tartara nigra putes. Quocunque adspicio, nihil est nisi pontus et aether; Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax....
But, then, if the poet has lighted up for us these grim and appalling depths, he has not failed to raise us too into the presence of proportionate loftiness and purity. "Tantum vertice in auras Aetherias quantum radice in Tartara tendit." Like the gloomy and umbrageous grove of which the Sibyl spake to the pious Aeneas, the poem conceals a golden branch and golden leaves.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon when the column, having crossed the Sapparia, or grassy flats, leading up to the watersheds, arrived at Pani Pal at the foot of the pass connecting the Rhotas Heights with the Tartara Mountain, the highest peak in this group of hills. Here a wide and varied view became suddenly visible.
"Cerberus," he had said, "had three mouths with which he barked; but you have three, or even four, which bark not, but devour." "Tres habuit fauces, et terno Cerberus ore Latratus intra Tartara nigra dabat. Et tibi plena fame tria sunt vel quatuor ora Quae nulli latrant, quemque sed illa vorant."
The Saint has no place for him, and the ruler of the lower regions fears the disturbance that he will make in hell. The quarrel is cut short by the arrival of Clement himself upon the spot, who, finding no entrance into heaven, declares that he will force himself into hell: "Tartara tentemus, facilis descensus Averni."
This pass, 31 miles long, can, however, be turned by going to the north through the Absuna and Tartara passes; they are not practicable for wheels, and the first part of the road along the Kabul River is very difficult and narrow, being closed in by precipitous cliffs.
And feeling that our ways were now divided, he continued: Hie locus est, partes ubi se via findit in ambas. Dextera, quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit Hac iter Elysium nobis; at laeva malorum Exercet poenas et ad impia Tartara mittit. "I cannot kill myself at present, but as soon as I feel able I shall do so."
"Quantum vertice in auras Aetherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit," for its roots do literally reach downward to Tartarus, or to the regions of subterranean fire; and what is concealed far below is probably always more important in volume and extent than what is visible above ground.
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