The Himalayas means 'Abode of snow' and is the source of the great rivers sustaining the teeming population of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Anyone who sees those glittering giants for the first time cannot help feeling a little awe struck.
The Nepalese Sherpas in the south have always called Mount Everest Sagamartha; The Tibetans in the north refer to it as Chomolungma, "Godess Mother of the Earth"; but ever since surveyors discovered it was the world's highest mountain in 1852, it was named after the name of a former British Surveyor General - Everest.