Mountainous terrain

“ Back from the shores, the forests rise in successive terraces as they climb the mountain sides, and soften their rugged outlines clear to their summits, save where here and there some giant snow peak thrusts its hoary head far above the green mantle of the mountains, and challenges the traveler’s eye from whatever direction he may be approaching. ”

“ Below the upper line of bare and worn rock, streaked in places with snow, and seamed with torrent courses, a region is entered upon where the freshest and softest mountain herbage, the greenest foliage, and the most brilliant flowers alternate with deep dells, tremendous gorges, rocky ravines, and precipices a thousand feet high. ”

“ Hills are insensibly crumbling into the valleys, valleys are silently eroded, and crags that ever since the birth of man have been the landmarks of the race, are yet slowly but surely melting away. It matters not where the hill or plain may lie, the highest mountains of the tropics and the frozen soil of the poles, yield each in its measure and degree to the influence of the general law. ”

“ The principal objects which strike the eye are innumerable mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles, rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green, grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or patches, occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys ”

“ When seen from high altitudes, a mountain appears merely as a part of a vast panorama or a single element in a wild, limitless scene of desolate peaks, which raise their bare, bleak summits among the sea of mountains far up into the cold regions of the atmosphere, where they become white with eternal snow, and bound by rigid glaciers. ”

“ Northward and southward the great snowy mountains, marshaled along the axis of the Range, are seen in all their glory, crowded together in some places like trees in groves, making landscapes of wild, extravagant, bewildering magnificence, yet calm and silent as the sky. ”

“ There is nothing of the grandeur of snow, or glaciers, or deep forests, to excite curiosity or adventure; no trace of gardens or waterfalls. From base to summit all seems gray, barren, silent--dead, bleached bones of mountains, overgrown with scrubby bushes, like gray moss. ”

“ Coniferous trees covered the slopes of the mountains, here and there were meadows, and lower down in the valleys foamed crystal clear streams. Up high were mountains, the highest of which were covered with snow and ice, but there was not a human being to be seen in this glorious region. ”

“ When at last, stricken and faint like a crushed insect, you hope to escape from all the terrible grandeur of these mountain powers, other fountains, other oceans break forth before you; for there, in clear view, over heaps and rows of foothills, is laid a grand, smooth, outspread plain, watered by a river, and another range of peaky, snow-capped mountains a hundred miles in the distance. ”

“ The extensive range of country seen from this hill increased in beauty as we ascended the road which ran along the edge of the ravine, fringed with majestic euphorbias; in the distance deep blue mountains, and plains of red sand, then wavy bush-covered hills, and in the valley below us the winding river, and our rear guard, with their long line of waggons slowly advancing. ”

“ The rugged mountains, rising in some places almost perpendicular to the road, the stupendous rocks above jutting out from their bases, seeming to threaten destruction to all below, and the mountain streams pouring over rock and crag, with ceaseless noise, added to the grandeur of the entire scene. ”

“ In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you come suddenly and without warning upon the abrupt edge of a gigantic sunken landscape of the wildest, most multitudinous features, and those features, sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of limestone and sandstone forming a spiry, jagged, gloriously colored mountain range countersunk in a level gray plain. ”

“ Awe-inspiring mountains rise into the air with every variety of jagged rock, crowning the heights now tinted red by the winter grass. The sharpest contrast of light and shadow strike the eye from the barren masses of sandstone, and the deep, dark ravines. ”

“ The most beautiful mountain landscape is always that seen from lower and medium altitude which disclose forest and stream and lake and the changing atmospheric hues of the lower valleys and wooded mountain-recesses. ”

“ No vegetation covers the steep declivities of the hills, except the moss and lichen upon the rocks, a few willows upon the banks of streams, the dwarf birch-tree or the scrub-pines, rising only to the height of a few inches, and often straggling over the earth like vines. Every hill has its valley, and every valley its lake—dark, and deep, and silent—in winter scarce to be distinguished under the snow-covered ice. The prospect in every direction exhibits a surface of rocks, or bleak hills, half covered with snow. The traveller looks around and sees no life. ”

“ On the shores of one of these mountain lakes, in the genial warmth of lower altitudes, where the water is hemmed in, and encroached upon, by the trees and luxuriant vegetation fostered by a moist climate, the explorer beholds each mountain peak as the central point of interest in every view. Each cliff or massive snow-covered mountain then appears an unscalable height reaching upward toward the heavens,—a most inspiring work of nature, raising the eyes and the thoughts above the common level of our earth. ”

“ In the first place, mountains differ greatly in position, some being situated in even and level plains, while others are found in broken and elevated regions, and others again seem to be piled up, one mountain upon another. ”

“ As the traveller rises from one side of a mountain to a corner of the road, where it hurries perpendicularly down the other side, his eye may fathom a valley several thousand feet beneath, rich in vegetation, and surrounded on all points by rugged mountains covered with illimitable forests of fir, through the branches of which, here and there, the grey rocks glare, like skulls scattered over a green field ”

“ In most large mountain-systems, the highest point is surrounded by inaccessible rocks, deep valleys, and wild ravines; and few of the peasantry dare to visit those lonely regions, imprinted with the stamp of mystery, whence Nature looks down, wild, enigmatical, and threatening upon the distant plains. ”

“ It is its gradual rise that imparts so great a value to this noble mountain; for about its enormous base and upon its slopes, traversed by hundreds of streams of clear perennial water, there grows, or may grow, in successive, concentric belts, every kind of crop and forest known in the world, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle. The landscape is superb. ”

“ How unlike the Alps is the prospect you obtain from its summit. True, you will see no snow-capped peaks and shining glaciers, but what a chaos of gray and green mountains extend as far as the eye can reach. ”

“ It would lead us too far to discuss the formations represented in the strata, and it is more important to learn the altitudes of the mountains above the valleys, and their other physical features, since these characteristics have a more direct bearing on the scenery and on the general nature of the mountains. ”

“ The form of mountains is also very different: some form chains whose height is nearly equal in a long extent of soil, others are divided by deep vallies; some are regular, and others as irregular as possible; and sometimes in the middle of a valley or plain, we find a little mountain. There are also two sorts of plains, the one in the low lands, the other in mountains. ”

“ Deep valleys separate the gently rounded ridges of forest-clad mountains, lofty spurs descend from the interior, and, running down to the sea, terminate frequently in bold rocky headlands 800 to 1000 ft. ”

“ These mountains do not take abrupt shapes of cones and sugar-loaves, but stretch out in vast sweeps with broad summits and lateral ridges, features readily seized, and lending to the landscape its most salient characteristics. ”

“ Thus for long miles, hour after hour, and, in large mountain regions, day after day, the character of the scenery slowly changes. The mountains grow bigger; vegetation varies with level and aspect; [200] Nature grows more austere, and therewith more magnificent. You traverse some vast defile, like the gorge of Gondo perhaps, where road and river find passage beneath opposite cliffs, water-worn and of imposing height. You enter secluded basins, where the valley widens to close again; you pass round the margin of lakes that hold the hill-tops, as it were, in their depths. ”

“ The study of the mountains is further facilitated by their isolation. They mark a limited system of disturbances, which interrupt a region of geological calm, and structurally, as well as topographically, stand by themselves. ”

“ The magic of summer life on this sunlit plateau, with its limitless distances, its rushing streams, its enormous crawling glaciers, its waving grasses, its sweeping gentle valleys, its myriad friendly animals, and, back of all and commanding all, its never-forgotten and ever-controlling presence, the shining Range and Master Mountain, powerfully grip imagination and memory. ”

“ The great beauty of the scenery in these mountains lies in the grand expanse of the valleys that open out sheer at your feet, under precipices of from 300 to 500 feet and in the curious formation of rock that generally surrounds them, standing out into their midst in jagged masses or formations that take the shape of something human. ”

“ The deep valleys traversing the storm-ridden plateau are often beautiful exceedingly, and form a strange contrast to the dull grey expanse of rocky ridge and treeless plain of the weird plateau land; but in order to reach them, or to pass from one to the other, high altitudes and rugged pathways must always be negotiated. ”

“ Just before reaching the ridge, where it joins this peak, a fine spring, deliciously cold, gushed from the mountain side. A few rods more of ascent brought us quite out upon the long, narrow, curving backbone of the mountain, uplifting its sharp edge between two profound gorges, connecting the peaks set at its two extremes, between which Nature has decreed a perpetual divorce. The sun was just setting as we emerged upon this natural way conducting from peak to peak along the airy crest of the mountain. ”

“ The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home. Yet how many are doomed to toil in town shadows while the white mountains beckon all along the horizon! ”

“ But when this dreary barrier is passed the surface features of the country in general are found to be finely molded and collocated, smooth valleys, wide as compared with their depth, trending back from the shore to a range of mountains that appear blue in the distance, and round-topped hills, with their side curves finely drawn, touching and blending in beautiful groups, while scarce a single rock-pile is seen or sheer-walled bluff to break the general smoothness. ”

“ There is the broad expanse and reach of water, the rugged, towering mountains, thousands of feet high and reaching far into the clouds. Well known forms of vertical escarpements and conical pinnacles peculiar to basaltic formation crown the successive heights to the very mountain tops. ”

“ The mountains, from the water’s edge, to within a short distance of the lower limit of perpetual snow, are everywhere (excepting on the exposed western shores) concealed by an impervious forest, the trees of which do not periodically shed their leaves. ”

“ The landscape about the mountains is sure to offer some dark objects, perhaps deep shadows, and even the mountain itself [80] nearly always has bare rocks and dark, gloomy cañons, and to get these and the dazzling whiteness of the snow and ice on the same plate is decidedly difficult. ”

“ Here, in some tremendous convulsion of Nature, the mountain-ridge seems to have been suddenly rent and [Pg 231] burst through towards its summit, and we look down over a precipice some five hundred feet deep. It is possible to wind down the face of the rock by a narrow path; but, having no mind to make the descent, we rest and admire the magnificent prospect before and below us. Under the precipice is a forest, so near to the foot of the rock that one might easily pitch a stone into it. Over the forest stretches a lovely country, green and fresh, dotted with hills and woods. ”

“ No geologist can doubt that such relationship is the result of denudation. The mountains are — 19 — monuments of erosion—they are the wreck of an old table-land—the upper surface and original inclination of which are approximately indicated by the summits of the various mountain-masses and the direction of the principal water-flows. If we in imagination fill up the valleys with the rock-material which formerly occupied their place, we shall in some measure restore the general aspect of the Highland area before its mountains began to be shaped out by Nature’s saws and chisels. ”

“ On the long, smooth, finely folded slopes of the main ridge, at a height of five to six thousand feet above the sea, they reach most perfect development and are marshaled to view in magnificent towering ranks, their colossal spires and domes and broad palmlike crowns, deep in the kind sky, rising above one another,—a multitude of giants in perfect health and beauty,—sun-fed mountaineers rejoicing in their strength, chanting with the winds, in accord with the falling waters. ”

“ On level ground, hills have arisen; mountains, on the other hand, have been depressed and flattened. Chasms of wonderful depth, exhaling a foul stench, have been hollowed out in many places, plains lie open, far and wide, where there were formerly very dense and lofty forests. ”

“ In fact, the general lack of rugged escarpments as well as of great elevation leads the geographer to rank even the highest of these rounded summits as hills of large size rather than attempt to burden them with the dignity that the term mountain carries with it. They are beautiful hills, separated one from another by lovely valleys, which draw the beholder to them and fill his memory with tender longings and vague dreamy fancies such as the sterner grandeurs of great mountains fail to awaken. ”