Leaning against the fore-cabin, so as to keep their places
notwithstanding the speed of the ship, they watched these colossal
masses, which seemed to be running away from the aeronef.

"The Himalayas, evidently," said Phil Evans; "and probably Robur is
going round their base, so as to pass into India."

"So much the worse," answered Uncle Prudent. "On that immense
territory we shall perhaps be able to --"

"Unless he goes round by Burma to the east, or Nepal to the West."

"Anyhow, I defy him to go through them."

"Indeed!" said a voice.

The next day, the 28th of June, the "Albatross" was in front of the
huge mass above the province of Zang. On the other side of the chain
was the province of Nepal. These ranges block the road into India
from the north. The two northern ones, between which the aeronef was
gliding like a ship between enormous reefs are the first steps of the
Central Asian barrier. The first was the Kuen Lung, the other the
Karakorum, bordering the longitudinal valley parallel to the
Himalayas, from which the Indus flows to the west and the
Brahmapootra to the east.

What a superb orographical system! More than two hundred summits have
been measured, seventeen of which exceed twenty-five thousand feet.
In front of the "Albatross," at a height of twenty-nine thousand