The railway carriages in which one makes this trip are as extraordinary as the road itself. They are only nine feet long and six feet high, and come to within nine inches of the ground. Seated in one of these small boxes, while wriggling up the mountain side and shaken violently every other minute on the innumerable curves, I felt as I should suppose an insect might feel riding on one of the rings of a rattlesnake's tail.

Rounding A Curve.

To pull us up this steep ascent, our baby locomotive, weighing only nine-and-a-half tons, toiled constantly for seven hours; now straining every nerve in short, quick, agonizing puffs, now halting as if breathless and exhausted; but finally, conquering every obstacle, and glistening with oil, as if drenched with perspiration, it turned triumphantly the last and loftiest of countless corners, and reached the terminus - Darjeeling. This is the spur of a mountain, which juts out into space, as the promontory of Monaco projects into the Mediterranean. One walks around it on a level path, as on the parapet of an enormous citadel. On three sides, the bluff falls sharply off, much as it does around the city of Jerusalem; save that in this case the descent is more precipitous, and the surrounding chasms are two thousand feet in depth.

Beyond the deep ravines, however, is a range of mountains, nine, ten, and eleven thousand feet in height, rolling away like monstrous billows, which increase in size until the wall of the huge amphitheatre is complete. It was shortly before sunrise on the morning of the seventeenth of December, that I stood here waiting for the couriers of the dawn to rouse from dreams the sleeping Orient. For me the moment was as full of promise as when I stood upon the North Lape, tar above the Arctic Ocean, and gazed out over the rounded shoulder of the globe, to see the Midnight Sun.

At length, a hidden hand seemed to draw back the misty curtain of the night, permitting me to see what was beyond the highest circle of the amphitheatre. Merciful God! was this a revelation of the gates of pearl, the gleaming battlements of the celestial city? Assuredly it seemed so; for toward the north, dwarfing all lesser peaks into insignificance, rose a stupendous barrier against the sky, as if to indicate the limits of the world. Though forty miles away, we nevertheless had to gaze upward to behold it. At first this wall seemed ghostlike, indefinable, and mysterious; but as I watched, its crystal edge was gradually changed from white to gold. A moment more, and as a blush overspreads a snow-white cheek, neck, and breast, so did that roseate hue move swiftly downward to the right and left, until the mighty form of Kinchinjinga, twenty-nine thousand feet in height, stood absolutely rosy in the morning glow. Then peak after peak, in the majestic order of their heights, repeated this magnificent greeting to the god of day. For more than a hundred miles, a line of walls, towers, and buttresses - yes, every form of architecture that the mind can possibly conceive - stood out in gold and silver on a sky of sapphire; while lower still, and leading upward to the Halls of Snow, a host of glaciers rose like jeweled highknown to be surpassed by one more distant summit - Mount Everest, which rears its icy crest eight hundred and forty-six feet higher than its rival. This is, however, difficult to see, and practically impossible to illustrate, being one hundred and twenty miles away. But Kinchinjinga is the glory of Darjeeling, the representative of the Himalayas, the viceroy of Mount Everest, the chosen form in which these mountains show themselves to man. No life exists upon these awful heights. No human voice disturbs their solemn stillness. No foot of man has ever pressed these pure and radiant summits. The highest pass by which men go at times from India to Thibet is only eighteen thousand feet in height, leaving two miles of ice and snow still towering toward the sun and stars. Forever virgin to the touch of man, these highest points of our revolving globe remain as chaste and unapproachable as the moon, nearer than and yet as inaccessible as the North Pole. That evening, about six o'clock, I stood again on the promontory of Darjeeling. Enormous clouds (themselves as large as mountains changed to mist) were drifting through the amphitheatre. But far above the lesser mountains which they half concealed, we could gaze upward into the empyrean itself, - calm, cloudless, and eternal. There in ineffable glory rose the vast chain of the Himalayas, illumined by the setting sun. This in itself was wonderful. But, gradually, as the shades of coming night crept upward from the valleys, these wondrous peaks appeared detached from earth, - belonging to another world, - holding communication with another sphere. We gazed on them with bated breath. Silence was golden; speech would have been sacrilege. For more than an hour did this celestial vision linger, so high did these transcendent summits rise toward heaven, and so far-reaching were their glances toward the radiant west. Even when Darjeeling and its ramparts were completely lost in darkness, the benediction of departing day still rested lovingly upon that loftiest crest - a cloud of roseate fire in the dome of Night - until the ultimate farewell was given, - the veil was drawn, - and I awoke as from a dream.