130 SICKNESS AT GREAT HEIGHTS. 



LIB. m. Indies, where the ayre and the wind that rains makes men 

 dazie, not lesse, but more then at sea. Some hold it for a 

 fable, others say that it is an addition ; for my part I will 

 speake what I have tried. There is in Peru a high moun- 

 taine which they call Pariacaca, 1 and having heard speake 

 of the alteration it bred, I went as well prepared as I could 

 according to the instructions which were given me, by such 

 as they call Vaguianos, or expert men; but notwithstanding 

 all my provision, when I came to mount the stairs, as 

 they call them, which is the top of this inountaine, I was 

 suddenly surprized with so mortal! and strange a pang that I 

 was ready to fall from my beast to the ground ; and although 

 we were many in company, yet every one made haste (with 

 out any tarrying for his companion) to free himselfe speedily 

 from this ill passage. 2 Being then alone with one Indian, 

 whom I intreated to keep me on my beast, I was surprised 

 with such pangs of straining and casting as I thought to cast 

 vp my soul too; for having cast vp meate, fleugrne, and 

 choller, both yellow and greene, in the end I cast vp blood, 

 with the straining of my stomacke. To conclude, if this had 

 continued, I should vndoubtedly have died ; but this lasted 

 not above three or four houres, that we were come into a 

 more convenient and naturall temperature, where all our 

 companions, being fourteene or fifteene, were much wearied. 

 Some in the passage demaunded confession, thinking 

 verily to die ; others got off their beasts, beeing over 

 come with casting, and going to the stoole ; and it was 

 tolde me that some have lost their lives there with this 

 accident. I beheld one that did beate himselfe against 



o 



the earth, crying out for the rage and griefe which this 

 passage of Pariacaca hadde caused. But commonly it 



1 Caeca means a rock in Quichua. I cannot, with certainty, identify 

 this pass of Pariacacca. 



- The sickness, at great heights in the Andes, caused by rarified at 

 mosphere, is called Sorocli. 



