Two Englishmen, after weeks of struggling up the sides of the giant mountain, got nearer than any other human being ever had before—within a few hundred feet of the top. A companion whom they left at their last sto watched them as they plunged upward in their last desperate struggle, and then—whish!—an icy blast of snownd sleet swept them from sight—forever. The native people think a goddess lives at the top and that she will let no one climb to her, and that it brings bad luck and even death to try to reach such a holy place.
At the other end of the Himalaya Mountains is a high valley which is so beautiful that poets call it a vale instead of a valley. It is the Vale of Kashmir. “Who has not heard of the Vale of Kashmir,” says one poet,with its roses, the brightest the earth ever gave?” Beautiful lakes with snow-topped mountains, and roses, roses everywhere. It seems as if this should have been the Garden of Eden instead of that sun-baked mud bankbetween the Tigris and Euphrates.
If you will look at your map of Asia carefully you will see something strange about two of the countries that touch India. The country next to India on the west and the country next to India on the east have the samename, Pakistan. How can two separate countries have the same name? The answer is that Pakistan is one country in two parts.