The Throne of Solomon
Kensington: I sent him an affectionate thought across whatever
continents lay between us, and began to wonder which sum-
mits he would recommend in the landscape before me as objects
for my amateur practices. As soon as one descends from a
pass all the peaks and heights which there seemed so conspicu-
ous vanish behind unimportant foregrounds—even as the
Philosopher is obscured by the Politician—not to reappear
until, after miles and days or hours, they have altered their
shape and—like the above Philosopher's principles—become
unrecognizable. From the valleys, also, one hardly ever sees
the actual top; some inferior hump or shoulder usurps the sky-
line and puts out the geographer.
And here was a third difficulty. Nearly all that lay before
us—the sea-like forest country and the hills, the far horizon
ranges and nearer system descending with sharp crests to the
Sardab Rud—were nameless as far as we were concerned.
Except for the valley below and Kalar Dasht in the distance,
neither my map nor the shikari knew anything about any one
of them.
After three hours of struggle with all these problems I felt
excessively weary. But I made one more effort and climbed
about 100 feet higher, over a scrag heap of rust-coloured slabs,
to a small rise on the ridge, so as to look over its broad back
towards the jungle. There was little to see. That unknown
country wraps itself in a double mystery of trees and mists,
and is as difficult to look at as to visit. J. B. Fraser describes
its almost impenetrable tangles which, except for a small
strip along the coast, have remained unaltered since his day;
and Major Noel, in The Royal Geographical Society's Journal
of June, 1921, speaks of the " virgin forests . . . where the
villagers are almost as wild as the forest itself; and where the
tigers lurk in the boxwood thickets in the daytime, and
stroll about openly on the beach in the night-time . . /'
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