Mountain Journeys 143 



panions and his beasts of burden, it is far from being true that 

 all travellers have enjoyed the same immunity. 



In fact, in the annals of Berghaus, for March, 1832, we find 

 the following quotation, relating to a passage of the Himalayas 

 on the border of Sutlej; the name of the traveller is not mentioned: 



At an elevation of 15,000 feet, respiration becomes difficult; the 

 traveller feels great lassitude, vertigo, headaches and unquenchable 

 thirst. It is impossible to describe the sensations produced by extreme 

 rarefaction of the air; one constantly feels as if he were smothering; 

 respiration accelerates in a very painful manner, the elasticity of the 

 skin diminishes. The highest "* point of the pass is at an elevation 

 of 16,500 feet. (P. 547.) 



Moreover, Lieutenant J. Wood, 225 who made a journey to the 

 sources of the Oxus in 1836, 1837, and 1838, gives numerous and 

 interesting details on this subject. 



February 20, the expedition reached the plateau of Pamir, 

 the altitude of which is 15,600 feet, the mountains surrounding it 

 rising 3000 or 4000 feet higher; the party was at the sources of the 

 Oxus, on the shore of a frozen lake: 



We began to break the ice to sound the depth of the lake. The 

 ice was 2V2 feet thick, and because of the great rarity of the air, a 

 few strokes with the picks exhausted us so much that we had to lie 

 down on the snow to get our breath. (P. 360.) .... 



Fifty steps at full speed set us to panting. In fact, exercise 

 brought on pain in the lungs and a general exhaustion which did not 

 improve for several hours. 



Some of us suffered from vertigo and headaches, but except for 

 these various phenomena, I felt nothing and saw nothing in the others 

 which resembled the sufferings experienced by travellers in the 

 ascent of Mont Blanc. In the latter case, the transition from dense air 

 to rarified air is so sudden that the circulation does not have time to 

 adapt itself to the difference in pressure, so its speed increases in some 

 of the most sensitive organs of the body. The ascent of Pamir, on the 

 contrary, was so gradual that it required "extrinsic" circumstances to 

 remind us of the considerable altitude which we had reached. 



The effects of the great elevation had, however, been proved to 

 me some time before in a manner for which I had not been prepared. 

 One evening, in Badakhshan, as I was sitting reading by the fire, I 

 had the idea of feeling my pulse, and its rapid and wild beating 

 aroused my attention. I imagined that I had been attacked by a 

 violent fever, and I used the precautionary measures which Dr. Lord 

 had prescribed when he left. The next day, my pulse was as rapid 

 as on the day before, and yet I felt in excellent health. I thought then 

 of examining the pulse of my companions, and to my great surprise 

 I found that theirs were more rapid than mine. The cause of this 

 increase in circulatory activity was evident to me at once; and when 



