288 The Philvsuphical Society of Glasgow. 



of great elevation, I will narrate that which I felt, and that which 

 came under my own observation — also a few facts as stated to me by 

 the late Rear- Admiral Charles Hope. In the year 1835 the British 

 Frigate " Tyne'' was in the South Pacific Ocean at Ariea, and the Com- 

 mander, Captain Charles Hope,* with his Surgeon, Dr. Cunningham, 

 R.]Sr.,t came up to Tacna, where I then resided. Along with an Indian 

 guide, they went up to a canal which was being made, to fertilize the 

 desert between the Andes and the ocean. The highest point to which 

 they ascended is about 15,000 feet, English measure, above the ocean 

 and on his return to Tacna, Captain Hope informed me that he had 

 nearly perished when near the crest of the mountain ; and that he 

 ascribed his escape from death to the timely aid that was given to him by 

 Dr. Cunningham. The Captain stated that he was affected with difficult 

 and painful respiration when attempting to climb on foot, suffering ex- 

 treme nausea and vomiting, with vertigo and severe headache, — in fine, 

 with the symptoms of aggravated sea-sickness. % [Dr. Hamilton next 

 quoted the testimony of Captain Wilkes, in his Narrative of the United 

 States Exploring Expedition in the years 1838-42, as to similar effects 

 being produced on some of his party in ascending a mountain near Lima, 

 15,000 feet high.] 



I will now briefly notice my own experience, when climbing moun- 

 tains, while traversing both the western and the eastern or more internal 

 Andes of Southern Peru and Bolivia, in 1827. 



Don Joachin de Achavel, a merchant of great celebrity, being on his 

 return from the west coast to the interior of the Continent, I accepted 

 his urgent invitation to visit along with him the cities of Oruro, Potosi, 

 Chuquisaca, &c., with the return journey to the Pacific, through the 

 great Desert of Caranjas, via Andamarca and the Mountain of Sahama, 

 which Mr. Pentland states rises more than 22,000 feet above the ocean. 



We moved from Tacna on 24th August. Our party consisted of eight 

 men (I being the only Englishman), with two horses and twenty-four 

 mules, and arrived at Palca in the evening of the same day. It is about 



* The late Rear-Admiral Charles Hope was brother to the late Lord Justice Clerk. 



t The much lamented Cunningham, who, when on a solitary botanizing ramble in the 

 southern hemisphere, was attacked by savages, murdered, and eaten by them ; his bones 

 and other relics having been found by a party of his shipmates, who went from the frigate 

 in quest of him. 



% In the year 1735 the Kings of France and Spain sent commissionei's to the equatorial 

 regions of America; and in a work written by one of them, and printed in Madrid in 1792, 

 it is stated that the " 71/areo,'' which he notices as affecting travellers in Peru, was not ex- 

 perienced by the Academicians while at the Equator. It may be noted that neither these 

 favans nor the Baron Humboldt ever visited South Peru, where there are cities at a much 

 ^'veater allidide than any in Afexiro or CVntrnl America. 



