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18 of perpetual snow is at about 16,000 feet, but for six months of the year the snow-line comes down 5000 feet lower. In the Inner Himalaya and the Muztagh-Karakoram, to which the monsoon does not penetrate, the air is so dry that less snow falls and the line is a good deal higher.

Himalayan Scenery.— Certain things strike any observant traveller in the Himalaya. One is the comparative absence of running or still water, except in the

Fig. 7. R. Jhelam in Kashmir - View towards Mohand Marg.

height of the rainy season, away from the large rivers. The slope is so rapid that ordinary falls of rain run off with great rapidity. The mountain scenery is often magnificent and the forests are beautiful, but the absence of water robs the landscape of a charm which would make it really perfect. Where this too is present, as in the valley of the Bias in Kulu and those of the Jhelam and its tributaries in Kashmir and Hazara, the eye has