CHAP. X MOUNTAIN SICKNESS 185 



ice of the tropics are not quite the same as in the Alps. 

 Comparing Kenya and Switzerland, on the former the ice is 

 harder ; it is more often arranged in alternate layers, one hard 

 and compact, and one friable and spongy ; and the snow is 

 more frequently in the powdery or pulverulent condition. The 

 present training of Swiss guides is not conducive to originality, 

 though it makes them very safe in their own immediate dis- 

 trict. If such guides be transferred to equatorial snowfields, 

 formed under very different climatic conditions from their own, 

 and there be allowed to apply unchecked the rule-of-thumb 

 methods favoured by the regulations of the " Corporations of 

 Guides " of the Alpine centres, disasters may easily happen. 



In the second place, mountain sickness is so intimately 

 connected with the future of mountaineering, that any addi- 

 tional evidence as to the liability to this malady at high 

 altitudes in the tropics is of interest. Very opposite con- 

 clusions are held regarding this malady, and somewhat extreme 

 opinions have been expressed on both sides. According to one 

 school, diminished pressure makes little appreciable difference. 

 Thus Mr. Dent,^ for example, who is an eminent authority both 

 on mountaineering and on medicine, thinks that it need not 

 prevent men accomplishing the ascent of even the highest 

 mountain on the globe. Whymper,''^ on the other hand, regards 

 it more seriously. 



My own experience has been that exposure to lower 

 atmospheric pressure means a diminished capacity for steady 

 work. At comparatively moderate elevations the lightness of 

 the atmosphere has an exhilarating influence, and acts as a 

 decided stimulant. But, as with other stimulants, it is followed 

 by reaction. 



It is not unless a stay is made for some time above the 

 level of 10,000 or 12,000 feet, and hard work undertaken 

 there, that the effects of the different atmospheric conditions 

 become manifest. No one now notices any appreciable incon- 

 venience at the height of 8000 feet in the Alps ; but Mr. 

 Whymper maintains, from experiments in the Andes, that his 

 powers of walking were less there than at lower levels. I did 



^ C. T. Dent, "Can Mount Everest be Ascended?" Xinetce?itk Century, October 

 1892, vol. x.\xii. pp. 606-613. 



2 E. Whymper, Travels among Great Atides of the Equator, p. v. 



