CROSSING THE CHOOR MOUNTAINS.
Lieutenant Moorcroft was the first European who ever crossed the Choor Mountains. After many hardships and difficulties, he died at Andhko. The elevation of this mountain-pass above the level of the sea, is twelve thousand one hundred and forty-nine feet. During a considerable part of the year, the Choor is hoary with snow; and when moonlight falls upon the scene, an effect is produced as if floods of molten silver were poured over the surface. Moonlight in these regions assumes a novel charm. The rugged peaks, stern and chilling as they are, lose their awful character, and become brilliant as polished pearl; the trees, covered with icicles, seem formed of some rich spar; and the face of nature becoming wholly changed, presents the features of a world calm and tranquil, but still and deathlike.
He was the first that ever crossed
Those pale hills, with their snow,
Whose summits in the clouds are lost,
From whence the cold rills flow.
He stood—the pines at his right hand,
The eagle at his side;
He thought upon his English land,
And Solitude replied.
How strange it must have been to hear
Our own familiar tongue,
Bringing its home and childhood near
Those mountain-tops among.
Within that English traveller’s heart
What deep emotions stirred,
As talked their little band apart,
Each with an English word!
Were they familiar thoughts and fond—
Thoughts linked with early hours,
That scarcely give a look beyond
The present’s fruit and flowers,
That seem to pass like streams away,
And yet that leave behind
Music that many an after day
Will bring again to mind?
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