Mountain Journeys 61 



I borrow the other quotation from Heusinger," ; who took it from 

 Elliotson: 



M. Lyell says that the Englishmen who own mines on the plateau 

 of Mexico, at an elevation of 9,000 feet above the sea, took greyhounds 

 there to hunt hares; but they could not endure hunting in the rarefied 

 air, they were out of breath before reaching the game. On the contrary, 

 their young born in this place are not affected by the rarefied air; they 

 hunt and overtake the game as well as the best greyhounds in England. 

 (Vol. I, p. 260.) 



But I must not forget that my chief interest here is not the 

 somewhat chronic and vague symptoms which follow the prolonged 

 residence on rather moderate heights, but those which suddenly 

 attack travellers who are ascending very lofty mountains. 



From this standpoint, among the mountains whose height is 

 above the limit at which appear physiological symptoms due to the 

 altitude, Popocatepetl (5420 meters) should be particularly men- 

 tioned. 



Since the time (1519) when the brave Ordaz ascended it at the 

 command of Hernando Cortez, and as reward for his courage re- 

 ceived the authorization to bear a volcano on his coat of arms, and 

 when a second Spanish expedition was sent by the same con- 

 queror to get sulphur there (1522) , 04 no mountain climber had trod 

 the summit of the giant of Mexican mountains. The first European 

 to ascend it is the English lieutenant, W. Glennie, April 20, 1827. 



The sensations experienced by M. Glennie (says the secretary of 

 the Geological Society in the extract he gives of a letter from this 

 traveller) 65 are those already described by travellers to great heights, 

 that is, prostration, respiratory difficulties and headache, this last symp- 

 tom appearing first at the elevation of 16,895 feet (5147 meters). It 

 was found that tobacco and alcoholic liquors produced an extraordi- 

 narily rapid effect upon the sensorium. 



A few years later, April 27, 1834, Baron Gros, 66 attached to the 

 French Legation in Mexico, made the ascent in his turn. 

 When he had reached the limit of vegetation, he cried: 



We began to feel that we are no longer in the sphere where it is 

 possible to live. Respiration is hampered; a sort of melancholy which 

 is not without charm seizes us. (P. 50.) 



He passed the night at this height. Before lying down, the 

 travellers mounted a little higher "to accustom our lungs some- 

 what by degrees to breathing an air so unfitted for them." (P. 51.) 



