Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/259

 K? 193

shade, and that its pre-eminent altitude was. unsuspected until it was brought to light by trigonometrical observation.”

With these observations I entirely agree.

K? was, as I have said, discovered by Colonel Montgomerie in 1858. He took the first observa- tion to it from Haramokh, the conspicuous peak on the north side of the valley of Kashmir, at a distance of 187 miles. I saw it first from the north from the Aghil range which I discovered in 1887, and I subsequently passed close under it both then and in 1889, and never shall I forget the impression it left on me as I rounded a spur, and looking up a valley saw, quite unexpectedly, this real mountain monarch towering almost immedi- ately above me, very abrupt and upstanding, and with immense masses of ice accumulated at its base. . IT have also seen Mount Everest from the north, and it is remarkable that both these peaks, which are so inconspicuous from the southern side, should stand out so boldly from the north. K? is not so massive a mountain as Kinchinjunga and Nanga Parbat. It is rather the bold culminating peak of a range.

The height of K? is put down as 28,250 feet above the sea. How can we be certain that this is

right? The reply is that wecannot. The observa- 18