KASHMIR AND THE HIMALAYAS 119

a great bend to the south and south-west through unknown
 hills, and in its farther course of 6oo miles carries
the drainage of Assam to the Bay of Bengal. Enclosed
between these two mighty river arms the Himalayas may
be said to lie. Not very far from the same hydrographical
 centre are the sources of the Sutlej, which, winding
through the mountains past Simla, waters the eastern
Punjab and is lost in the Indus, and of the Sarda or
Ghagra, which is so much the largest tributary of the
Ganges as to render it doubtful whether it is not the
main stream. The Ganges is traditionally supposed to
rise at Gangotri, where the Gaimukh (or cow’s mouth)
is pointed out as the glacial origin of the river. But the
stream which issues from the ice cave at Gangotri is the
Bhagirathi, a comparatively small affluent of the Ganges
compared to the Alaknanda which drains from the Badrinath
 and Nandadevi group of snowy peaks ; or to the
far larger Ghagra which rises beyond Nepal, and joins
the Ganges some 500 miles from its mouth.
Interlaced between the upper tributaries of these four
great rivers is the gigantic system of mountains which
form the true Himalayas, culminating in a vast and continuous
 chain of snow-covered mountains stretching from
the bend of the Indus to the bend of the Brahmaputra,
crowned with the highest peaks that the world has to
show, across which lie the direct passes into Tibet. Tibet
can be entered from Eastern Kashmir by way of Leh and
the Pangong Lake, but even here the practicable passes
which might lead to Lhasa are jealously guarded, and
such is the present exclusiveness of Tibetan officialdom,
that there is no way into Tibet between Leh and Darjiling
that is open to the European.
The line of perpetual snow on this culminating chain
of peaks is reckoned at 16,000 feet above sea-level, consequently
 there is always a “snowy range’ visible from
every hill-station on the outer spurs of the Himalaya.
Beyond this chain either in Tibet, or in the far north-west
of Kashmir, on the Mustagh and the Karakoram which
divide Kashmir from that part of Chinese territory which