A few days before we had noticed that the top of the mountain was white, but the sun was still too strong in the daytime for the snow to lie long in exposed parts.

The way being too steep for my wife to ride or go in a dandy, we all three walked, or rather climbed, up to the shoulder where our tents were pitched, about a mile from the summit.
The forest through which we passed was very beautiful, commencing with dark-green ilex, glistening holly, and sombre brown oak, interspersed with groups of the dainty, graceful, white-stemmed birch, and wreathed with festoons of the scarlet Himalayan vine.

As we mounted higher, trees became fewer and the foliage less luxuriant, till at length only oaks were to be seen, their branches twisted into all sorts of weird, fantastic shapes from the strength of the south-west monsoon.

Huge rocks became more frequent, covered with lichens and mosses of every shade, from dark-green to brilliant crimson.

At length trees and shrubs were left behind, except the red-berried juniper, which grows at a higher elevation here than any other bush, and flourishes in the clefts of the rocks, where nothing else will exist.