Mountain Journeys 35 



sidered specific against this condition. But the surest treatment is to 

 take the patients as quickly as possible to a less lofty place. It has 

 been commonly noted that those of the peons who are old and addicted 

 to bad habits suffer more from the puna than the others, and this note 

 applied perfectly to the two whom I had to send back. One of them 

 was extremely sick, and the other under whose care he departed was 

 slightly affected. At present I do not know whether he managed to 

 cross the valley. 



Shortly afterwards they reached the summit, at an elevation of 

 3840 meters. He suffered no personal distress. 



Schmidtmeyer, 25 in the account of his crossing the Cordilleras 

 from east to west by the volcano of Cumbre, speaks of no physiolog- 

 ical symptom. But at the end of the book, he fills this gap: 



I should have spoken sooner of this exhaustion accompanied by 

 difficulty in breathing which one experiences when crossing the range; 

 I often heard it spoken of in Chile. But we remained on muleback up 

 to the highest point of the pass, which we therefore reached without 

 the slightest effort. One of our men, however, suffered from it con- 

 siderably, but I do not know whether it was an extreme case. Usually, 

 on the high peaks of the Andes, one experiences great difficulty in 

 moving; that is the opposite of what happens on other mountains. 

 (P. 349.) 



Proctor -° (1824), Head 27 (1825), who followed the same route, 

 in the same direction, make absolutely no mention of the puna. 

 Lister Maw, 2S who in November 1827 left Truxillo (Peru) for the 

 basin of the Amazon, does not speak either of the effect of the 

 pressure, except at Contumasa (2190 meters) , where he says po- 

 etically: 



The rarity of the atmosphere tended greatly to raise our spirits. 

 But Lieutenant Brand 29 is more explicit; he mentions these 

 symptoms, and even tries to explain them, but without having 

 experienced them himself, and yet he made his first journey from 

 Mendoza to Santiago over Cumbre in the midst of the austral 

 winter (August 22, 1827), He had to endure terrible cold, even 

 down to 15° below zero. 



August 22, he ascended Cumbre; the thermometer stood at 

 34° F.: 



As I had often heard of the puna, or difficulty in breathing, from 

 travellers who complained of it bitterly, I gave particular heed to it; 

 I cannot say that I felt any more inconvenience than would have hap- 

 pened to me if I undertook such labor, so long continued, even if I 

 , had not been at this elevation. I suffered only from a very acute 

 thirst, which the snow aggravated instead of satisfying. . . . But I do 

 not intend to contradict what has been said of the puna, which has 

 assailed many travellers severely. (P. 147.) . . , 



