To the right was Dhawalagiri, reaching twenty-six thousand eight hundred feet, and relegated to second place since the measurement of Mount Everest.
Evidently Robur did not intend to go over the top of these peaks; but probably he knew the passes of the Himalayas, among others that of Ibi Ganim, which the brothers Schlagintweit traversed in 1856 at a height of twenty-two thousand feet.

And towards it he went.
Several hours of palpitation, becoming quite painful, followed; and although the rarefaction of the air was not such as to necessitate recourse being had to the special apparatus for renewing oxygen in the cabins, the cold was excessive.
Robur stood in the bow, his sturdy figure wrapped in a great-coat.

He gave the orders, while Tom Turner was at the helm.

The engineer kept an attentive watch on his batteries, the acid in which fortunately ran no risk of congelation.

The screws, running at the full strength of the current, gave forth a note of intense shrillness in spite of the trifling density of the air.