Part 2—Tigers and Traitors
Chapter 1—Our Sanitarium
Speaking of the great American Andes, the mineralogist Haiiy uses a grand expression when he calls them “The incommensurable parts of Creation.”
These proud words may justly be applied to the Himalayan chain, whose heights no man can measure with any mathematical precision. They occurred to my mind when I first viewed this incomparable region, in the midst of which Colonel Munro, Captain Hood, Banks, and myself were to sojourn for several weeks.
“Not only are these mountains immeasurable,” said the engineer, “but their summit must be regarded as inaccessible; for human organs cannot work at such a height, where the air is not dense enough for breathing!”
This chain may be best described as a barrier of primitive granite, gneiss, and
