Mountain Journeys 99 



monastery, he went to bed, without being able to take anything but 

 a little tea; he suffered all night from a discomfort which he compared 

 to that of fever; the next morning he still felt oppression, and has- 

 tened to descend to Martigny. Of the two others, one was thirty years 

 old, and my brother seventeen: they had very little discomfort during 

 the last half -hour of the ascent; but although they were not very 

 tired when they arrived, they had not the slightest appetite, and even 

 the sight and the smell of food disgusted them. During the night they 

 recovered completely; on the next day, they were able to ascend to 

 one of the crests to the south of the monastery, and to go back down 

 to Martigny on foot. The fatigue of this day's efforts also took away 

 their appetite that evening, as it did that of another of our companions, 

 who had felt no effects at the Saint-Bernard; but then it was only 

 fatigue, there was no trace of the discomfort which they had felt the 

 night before. 



In the month of June, 1835, while I was climbing the slope of 

 snow which extends below Chateau Pictet on Buet, at a height of 

 about 3,000 meters, I felt my strength fail, it was very hard for me to 

 go on. One of my friends who accompanied me had already been 

 suffering for nearly a half-hour from fatigue in the legs and knees. 

 He made frequent halts. As for me, I could not take more than 160 

 consecutive steps. 



A little chocolate which I ate restored me almost completely; 

 however I was still obliged to stop from time to time, although I was 

 much less exhausted. From Chateau Pictet to the crest of Buet the 

 slope is very gentle, and I felt no lassitude while mounting it. 



In the month of July of the same year, I was climbing with a 

 guide on the point of rock which towers above the Saint-Theodule 

 pass on the north; about sixty meters below the crest, I perceived 

 that the guide stopped frequently; soon it was impossible for him' to 

 take more than eight to ten steps without stopping for breath. He 

 was a robust man and in the prime of life, so that I could not believe 

 that the weight of my sack which he was carrying was enough to 

 weary him to this extent; seeing him pant, turn pale, and nearly fall 

 in a faint, I told him to take a little rest; he would not admit his 

 distress at first, but finally was compelled to sit down, a cold sweat 

 ran down his face, he was exhausted. I had him eat a little bread 

 and chocolate, which, with a ten minute rest, quite restored him. The 

 elevation at which we were was hardly one hundred and fifty meters 

 above the Saint-Theodule pass, that is, 3,560 meters, but I had noted 

 when we left Zermatt about midnight that the guide was drunk,^ and 

 that is what had made him so susceptible to the rarefaction of the 

 air. 



Two days after, while climbing the Breithorn, at the east-south- 

 east of the Saint-Theodule pass, one of my guides found it impos- 

 sible to climb higher than the last plateau (about 3,900 meters) ; this 

 man was sixty years old and was afflicted by a double inguinal 

 hernia. Another guide of the same age panted greatly while climbing 

 the terminal cone of the Breithorn (4,100 meters), the grade of which 

 is very steep. The other two guides, men of thirty to thirty-five years, 

 felt no more distress than I. The next year, making the same excur- 



