Only In The Ghats Of The Malabar Coast,
From Cape Comorin To The River Surat, Are There Heights Of 7,000
Feet Above The Surface Of The Sea.
So that no comparison can be
dawn between these and the hoary headed patriarch Elbruz, or Kasbek,
which exceeds 18,000 feet.
The chief and original charm of
Indian mountains wonderfully consists in their capricious shapes.
Sometimes these mountains, or, rather, separate volcanic peaks
standing in a row, form chains; but it is more common to find
them scattered, to the great perplexity of geologists, without
visible cause, in places where the formation seems quite unsuitable.
Spacious valleys, surrounded by high walls of rock, over the very
ridge of which passes the railway, are common. Look below, and
it will seem to you that you are gazing upon the studio of some
whimsical Titanic sculptor, filled with half finished groups,
statues, and monuments. Here is a dream-land bird, seated upon
the head of a monster six hundred feet high, spreading its wings
and widely gaping its dragon's mouth; by its side the bust of a
man, surmounted by a helmet, battlemented like the walls of a
feudal castle; there, again, new monsters devouring each other,
statues with broken limbs, disorderly heaps of huge balls, lonely
fortresses with loopholes, ruined towers and bridges. All this
scattered and intermixed with shapes changing incessantly like the
dreams of delirium. And the chief attraction is that nothing here
is the result of art, everything is the pure sport of Nature, which,
however, has occasionally been turned to account by ancient builders.
The art of man in India is to be sought in the interior of the earth,
not on its surface.
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