Gora

“ Forests.—Outside a coast belt of about 20 m. and south of 8° N. the country is one vast forest, except where the natives have cleared the land for cultivation. In many districts the land has been cleared and cultivated and then abandoned, and has relapsed into scrub and jungle which is gradually returning to the condition of forest. The densest forest of all would seem to be that known as Gora, 540 which is almost entirely uninhabited and occupies an area of about 6000 sq. m. between the Pō hills and the British frontier. ”

“ It is overhung by gigantic cliffs, the great walls of the corridor of the gorge. The river which rushes underneath is something incomparably stronger than the bridge itself; it is a monster wallowing, plunging, roaring, thundering, lifting up a hundred dirty heads. No horse or man would stand a chance in its current; even the great glacial boulders, weighing tons, are rolled over and over by its waves, and, shutting one’s eyes, one listens to an uproar as of the heaviest streetful of traffic on Cheapside.
I think May is the best time to see the gorge, of a morning at dawn. ”

“ Nowhere in any mountain land does Nature offer the good things of the wilds with more prodigal hand than in the Himalaya. On the Southern slopes, coming down from the great snow-peaks, are the finest river gorges in the world, wonderful forests of mighty trees, open alps nestling high up at the head of the valleys, that look out over great expanses of the lesser ranges; and as one ascends higher and higher, the views of the great peaks draped in everlasting snow, changing perpetually as the clouds and mists form and re-form over them, astonish one by their magnificence. ”

“ We were obliged to keep high up because of the rank vegetation lower down, which really looked impenetrable. After a tedious climb, at last we saw the head of the gorge—a wonderful sight on which not many eyes have gazed. It is closed by a semi-circle of cliffs, precipitous and black; and wedged as it were between three mountain peaks, lies an enormous glacier.
Not a long river of ice, but a mighty mass of ice, breaking off sharp at the top of the stupendous cliffs, whose blackness contrasts strongly with its white surface and green edges. ”

“ The masses of rock, turned into grotesque shapes by the lathe of Nature, stand out sharply and boldly defined against the sky-line, owing to the clearness of the atmosphere. They have a peculiar beauty, their weird charm being accentuated by the vivid contrasting colourings of the various geological strata standing out in distinct lines. Looking down from the brink of the gorge, in the glare of the noonday sun or the soft light of the sunrise or sunset, the floor of the valley resembles a huge Persian carpet, with its intense multitudinous hues. ”

“ Knolls, and deeply coloured spurs of naked rock, most picturesquely crowded with chod-tens, rise above the greenery, breaking the purple gloom of the gorge which cuts deeply into the mountains, and supplies from its rushing glacier torrent the living waters which create this delightful oasis. ”

“ The grandeur of the views, and the ruggedness of the objects, in traversing a gorge which penetrates so many miles into the recesses of the mountain, may be imagined. Enormous masses of overhanging rock seem to be suspended above almost by a miracle; old pine forests hang upon the rugged cliffs; the torrent rushing by is spanned by bridges of snow, while huge unmelted avalanches lie in its bed below, cascades tumble from a hundred heights, while peaks, some dark, some snowy, many thousand feet high almost close overhead, and seem to jut into the sky. ”

“ Peaks towered mightily above the woodlands clothing their wide slopes, and shining with alabaster splendor in the sunlight.
It was the first glimpse of the torn land of the ominous Bell River gorge.
The sight of the gorge made them dizzy. The width, the depth, left an impression of infinite immensity upon the mind, an overwhelming hopelessness. Men used to mountain vastness all the days of their lives were left speechless for moments, while their searching eyes sought to measure the limits of this long hidden land. ”

“ The gorge itself is narrow, so that there is barely room for the road above and the river beneath. It seems a mere rift in the massive ridge, the perpendicular walls of red rock are cut into fantastic shapes, pinnacles and pillars growing more picturesque in form as the further end is reached. All ideas of desolation are instantly banished by the splendour of the sight that meets the eye, as the sea of sand washes up as it were to another sea of waving green. ”

“ Best of all I have discovered a gorge, sloping gently on one side, the other a huge boulder covered with moss; in the bottom of the gorge a brook pushing its tortuous way over rocks; and alders and ferns close to the banks. Overhead there is a rift of sky, and the sunlight flickers about [112] generously, and the woods I have come through look so dark and impenetrable. There is a fine dry rock with the alders meeting like an arbour above it, and I sit there by the hour and wonder why the forest ever made me feel over-civilised. Beside these people I feel a pure child of Nature. ”

“ Where are the vineyards which must once have clothed the lower slopes, protected by the walls of the volcanic valley against the rigorous climate of a region over 4000 feet above the sea? Nature had blighted the scene with layers of lava and cinders; man reclaimed the spot with laborious patience, until the work perished under the curse of his fellow-man. But what enemy would penetrate to this hidden valley, concealed behind the most inaccessible zone of the border mountains, defended by the Devil’s gorge? Perhaps the appearance of the opposite cliff affords a clue to this mystery. ”

“ And secret waters twinkle out by many a hidden channel to them, bedewing their foliage with grey moisture.
On a cloudy day night never departs from the deepest caverns of this gorge, and only the foam-light reveals each polished rib and buttress. The air is full of mist from a waterfall that thunders through the darkness, and chance of season and weather seldom permit the westering sun to thrust a red-gold shaft into the gloom. But that rare moment is worth pilgrimage, for then the place awakens and a thousand magic passages of brightness pierce the gorge to reveal its secrets. ”

“ Gradually, however, our attention is attracted towards a deep, rocky gorge, surrounded by greyish-blue mountains, which seem likely at any moment to topple over. In the midst of this gorge an enormous and completely isolated rocky pillar stands upright, looking for all the world as if it had just fallen from the skies. ”

“ As we ascend right up the glacier—either the one coming down from the Mustagh Pass or the one to the east running parallel with the general line of the Karakoram Range—we feel not only far away from but also high above the rest of the world. And we seem to have risen to an altogether purer region. Especially if we sleep in the open, without any tent, with the mountains always before us, with the stars twinkling brightly above us, do we have this sense of having ascended to a loftier and serener world. ”

“ A little way below us the gorge was heaped with the ruins of some unrecorded convulsion, by which the precipice had been cloven from base to summit, and the enormous fragments heaved into the chasm with a force the imagination is powerless to conceive. In the interstices among these blocks rose thickets of dwarf cedars, as stiff and unyielding as the livid rock itself. ”

“ When the vapours obscuring the middle slopes of the mountain dissolve and disappear, you see the shadowed jaws of the great chasm—the whole side of the mountain burst asunder from the cornice of the snow-roof to the base, the base itself depressed and hollow throughout its width of about 10 miles. No cloud has yet climbed to the snows of the summit, shining in the brilliant blue. ”

“ Gradually, as the road sweeps higher, the towering sides of the gorge change into steep slopes of grass and fern, strewn with boulders and broken here and there by clumps of firs. The slopes become lower and lower, more and more open, till at last the landscape widens into undulating fields. Then we turn, and glide down again round curve after curve, while the grandeur grows, as the huge walls of the gorge close in upon us and reach their climax in the Pinnacle Rocks. ”

“ A mile or two above Ichang rise the mountain portals giving entrance to the first great gorge, and for ten days on end the traveller is borne through a wonderland of cliffs and towering pinnacles, where in some past geologic era whole mountain-ranges have been twisted and torn asunder by some terrific convulsion in the earth's surface. Nature has here assumed her grandest and most solemn garb. ”

“ A thousand feet of this is up through granite crags, then steep slopes and perpendicular cliffs rise, one above another, to the summit. The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and flaring above, with crags and angular projections on the walls, which, cut in many places by side cañons, seem to be a vast wilderness of rocks. Down in these grand, gloomy depths we glide, ever listening, for the mad waters keep up their roar ”

“ But those who have once visited the Himalaya will never forget either the magnificence or the beauty of that immense mountain land, whether it be the valley country that lies between the great snow-covered ranges and the plains, where wonderful forests, flowers, clear streams and lesser peaks form a fitting guard to the mighty snow-peaks that lie beyond, or the great peaks themselves, that can be seen far away to the North, as one approaches through the foot-hills that lead up to them. ”

“ The eastbound began to wind and lift like a leviathan seeking a way through. It crept along a tilting shelf, rounded a sheer spur, and ran shrieking over a succession of trestles, while the noise of the exhausts rang a continuous challenge from shoulder and crag. Then suddenly a mighty summit built like a pulpit of the gods closed behind, and a company of still higher mountains encircled the gorge. Everywhere above the wooded slopes towered castellated heights and spires. ”

“ We followed the river Ardon through the wonderful gorge of Kassar. The little thread of road runs unobtrusively through ten miles of ruined cliffs. Far below the little river agonises, roars and conquers. The height, the depth, the gloom, the chaos of decay and ruin—these appal the vision. It is more dreadful and uninhabitable than the gorge of Dariel, a dangerous district, moreover, where man needs fear the bear and the wolf. ”

“ It was still very early, the first sunbeams were just illumining the highest points of the steep precipice on the opposite side of the abyss on which we were standing, and the cool breeze was too refreshing for us to think of hurrying back to camp. We followed the plateau therefore, from which the opposite one continually retired, until the gorge widened into a rocky glen, from which colossal masses of stone rose in wild confusion. ”

“ Leaving our mules with an attendant, we began to climb the rough and rocky gorge which, as the breadth diminishes, becomes exceedingly picturesque. In one part, the side of a limestone hill hundreds of feet in height, has slipped into the chasm, half filling it with gigantic boulders: through these the noisy stream whirls, now falling in small cascades, then gliding over slabs of sheet rock: here it cuts grooved channels and deep basins clean and sharp as artificial baths in the sandstone, there it flows quietly down a bed of pure sparkling sand. ”

“ We had soon left the shady groves behind us, our clever little ponies often obliged to pick their footsteps, where an outcrop of rock or blocks of fallen stone obstructed the margin of level ground. On either bank, beyond this margin, high hills enclose the narrow valley; here and there [79] with naked crags, more generally with stone-strewn slopes, harbouring a scanty growth of parched grass. No oasis, not a sign of a human being, no visible animal life. The landscape streaming with light, and the brawling Kur breaking over the boulders which encumber its bed. ”

“ In high water, the stream occupies all the bottom of the gorge, surging and chafing in glorious power from wall to wall. But the sound of the grinding was low as I entered the gorge, scarcely hoping to be able to pass through its entire length. By cool efforts, along glassy, ice-worn slopes, I reached the upper end in a little over a day, but was compelled to pass the second night in the gorge, and in the moonlight I wrote you this short pencil-letter in my notebook:--
The moon is looking down into the canyon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! ”

“ The defiant rock walls of the gorges give place by degrees to less aggressive mountain slopes. Disintegrated sandstone colours the land with a warm, rich red; well-to-do looking farmsteads with gabled roofs and white-washed walls nestle among clumps of bamboo in pleasant hollows; and bright patches of sugar-cane and a variety of vegetables add to the general air of rural prosperity. ”

“ By moonlight the scene is particularly sublime. The gloom of this narrow gorge shut in by the lofty mountains, the deep shades of the forests that cover them, and the abyss below, with the ceaseless rush of the mad stream, produce a profound impression on the mind. ”

“ The party took boats across the lake and, before starting for the climb, had luncheon at a pleasant tea-house on its shores. We then walked up to the top of the gorge and part way down on the other side. As it has been facetiously said, neither name for the place is a misnomer; and, indeed, one does well to guide one’s steps as religiously when going through this gorge as though walking on the very brink of perdition. For the whole gorge is weird and desolate and reeking with the sulphurous fumes that perpetually rise from the ground. ”