38 Historical 



May 29, d'Orbigny arrived at La Paz (3720 meters) : 



As I had felt much better when I had descended from the western 

 plateau to the Bolivian plateau, I expected to feel no more effects from 

 the rarefaction of the air; but in the city of La Paz it was far different. 

 At night I felt as if I were suffocating in my room. I could not climb 

 the steeply sloping streets without being stopped every ten paces by 

 palpitations and lack of breath. If I talked with animation, suddenly 

 speech failed me; when invited to several houses to take part in a 

 general entertainment, I could not waltz twice around without stop- 

 ping, suffocated by the same symptoms; and I almost died one day 

 when I tried to walk to Los Obragos, a village one league away, to 

 reach which I had to climb a very steep slope. 



This discomfort lasted during the whole of my first stay in La Paz. 

 Persons born in the country feel no effects at all. All assured me that 

 one finally gets acclimated, and I myself had the proof of this on my 

 return three years later. However, I should advise persons with weak 

 lungs not to subject themselves to this test, which gave me the most 

 pain in all my travels. (P. 404.) 



However the acclimatization of which d'Orbigny boasts was not 

 as complete as one might think. It is true that in the account of 

 his second stay in 1832 at Potosi, Oruro, and La Paz he does not 

 mention any symptoms (Vol. Ill, p. 283 et seq.) ; but he returns to 

 the subject when he tells of certain ascents: 



I had to stop (July 5, 1832), while I was going from Cochabamba 

 to the country of the Moxos, beside a frozen lake nearly 5000 meters 

 above sea level. We felt the excessive cold all the more because we had 

 no shelter, and the air was so rarefied that I could hardly breathe. 

 (Vol. Ill, p. 176.) . . . The next day, on the way down, . . . with the 

 region of the clouds, vegetation began; up to that time I had felt an 

 oppression in my chest, so I cannot express the pleasure I felt when I 

 began to breathe more freely a less rarefied air (P. 117.) 



A German traveller, Ed. Poeppig, discusses the subject at greater 

 length; he was staying at Cerro de Pasco (4350 meters) : 



The new-comer to Cerro de Pasco is subject to serious inconven- 

 iences; walking, even on level ground, tires him extraordinarily; in 

 streets sloping upward, respiration becomes short and painful, he is 

 seized by headaches, by afflux of blood to the lungs, certain signs that 

 he will not be able to escape the attacks of the puna any more than 

 other foreigners. In vain does he try to brace himself energetically 

 against the sickness; it conquers him and triumphs over the strongest 

 wills. Just as during a violent attack of seasickness, the spirits are de- 

 pressed, the senses blunted, disgust and hypochondrial discourage- 

 ment transform the most robust, the most animated, the most coura- 

 geous in a surprising manner. The physical sufferings, when the attacks 

 of this sickness begin, are more painful and more varied than in the 

 usual forms of seasickness. When the puna (also called Veta, Sorocho, 



