[22

INDIA

In the Kumaon mountains is the pretty but rather
confined hill-station of Naini Tal, situated on the banks
of a lake surrounded by steep-sided hills, not always
secure from the danger of landslips; and within its area
of 12,000 square miles are to be found some of the
grandest scenes that Himalayan mountains can present.
Sir John Strachey writes with a special reference to
Kumaon when he says that, “to the traveller who remembers
 the wild magnificence of the peaks and glaciers
of the Himalaya, and the general sublimity of its aspect,
Zermatt and Chamouni seem insignificant. The mere

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F1G. 37.—Comparative Elevations. British, Alpine, Himalayan.

fact that the ranges of the Himalaya are often twice as
high as those of the Alps gives no idea of their respective
magnitude. The whole of the Bernese Alps might, it
has been said, be cast into a single Himalayan valley.
You might almost as reasonably, when the Scotch or
Welsh hills are white with snow, compare them with
Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, as compare anything in
the Alps with Nanda Devi and Trisul. If, preserving
the form of its great obelisk, you could pile the Matterhorn
 on the Jungfrau you would not reach the highest
summits of the Himalaya, and would have a mountain
less wonderful than the astonishing peak of Dunagiri.”