The Wrong Turning, and Other Sketches

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 87 THE REFUGEE. Northward of the great Plain of Hindostan rises the mountain chain of the Himalaya, which gradually ascends till its loftiest peaks attain the height of more than twenty-eight thousandfeet above the level of the sea, wrapped in perpetual snow. As may be supposed, much of this mountainous district is uninhabited: in some comparatively sheltered spots, however, are to be found villages peopled by a bold, fierce, and hardy race of Asiatics; ignorant also, and uncivilised. Into one of these villages, many years ago, entered a solitary traveller. He was toil-worn and travel-stained, and his condition so far excited the compassion of the natives that they willingly gave him what he most needed?food and shelter for rest The traveller was not a man of their race or language, he was a European and an Englishman. This was easily gathered from his complexion and general appearance: it was easy also to perceive from his dress and manners that the stranger was a person of some consideration. But he was traveiling alone. Alone he had traversed the broad plain, and threaded his way through its swampy borders at the foot of the mountains: alone he had climbed them from stage to stage, to the spot which he had reached where his strength had given way. How long a time these wanderings had occupied, whence the traveller had come, whither he proposed to go, and how hitherto he had subsisted on his journey, the villagers did not know. Days and weeks passed away, and the stranger was yet among them. His strength was partially restored, but he gave no sign of departure; and the Indian dialect in which he spoke to the natives was unintelligible to them. At length, however, by signs rather than words, he made known his wish to remain among those by whom his life had bee...