"On that immense territory we shall perhaps be able to--" "Unless he goes round by Burma to the east, or Nepal to the west." "Anyhow, I defy him to go through them." "Indeed!" said a voice.
The next day, the 28th of June, the "Albatross" was in front of the huge mass above the province of Zang.

On the other side of the chain was the province of Nepal.

These ranges block the road into India from the north.

The two northern ones, between which the aeronef was gliding like a ship between enormous reefs are the first steps of the Central Asian barrier.

The first was the Kuen Lung, the other the Karakorum, bordering the longitudinal valley parallel to the Himalayas, from which the Indus flows to the west and the Brahmapootra to the east.
What a superb orographical system! More than two hundred summits have been measured, seventeen of which exceed twenty-five thousand feet.
In front of the "Albatross," at a height of twenty-nine thousand feet, towered Mount Everest.