QUITO. 313 



4 After an hour's cautious climbing, the ridge of rock became 

 less steep, but the mist unfortunately remained as thick as ever. 

 One after another we all began to feel indisposed, and ex- 

 perienced a feeling of nausea accompanied by giddiness, which 

 was far more distressing than the difficulty of breathing. . . . 

 Blood exuded from the lips and gums, and the eyes became 

 bloodshot. There was nothing particularly alarming to us in 

 these symptoms, with which we had grown familiar by experience. 

 Once when upon the Pichincha, though bleeding did not occur, 

 I was seized with such violent pain in the stomach and over- 

 powering giddiness, that I sank upon the ground in a state of 

 insensibility, 1 in which condition I was found by my com- 

 panions, from whom I had withdrawn for the sake of making 

 some experiments in electricity. The elevation then was not 

 BO great, being less than 13,800 feet. On the Antisana, 

 however, at a height of 17,022 feet, our young travelling 

 companion, Don Carlos Montufar, had suffered severely from 

 bleeding of the lips. All these phenomena vary greatly in dif- 

 ferent individuals according to age, constitution, tenderness of 

 the skin, and previous exertion of muscular power ; yet in the 

 same individual they constitute a kind of gauge for the amount 

 of rarefaction of the atmosphere and for the absolute height 

 that has been attained. 



c The stratum of mist which had hidden every distant object 

 from our view began, notwithstanding the perfect calm, 

 suddenly to dissipate an effect probably due to the action of 

 electricity. We recognised once more the dome-shaped summit 

 of Chimborazo, now in close proximity. It was a grand and 

 solemn spectacle, and the hope of attaining the object of all our 

 efforts animated us with renewed strength. The ridge of rock, 

 only here and there covered with a thin sprinkling of snow, 

 became somewhat wider ; and we were hurrying forward with 

 assured footsteps, when our further progress was suddenly stopped 

 by a ravine, some 400 feet deep and sixty feet wide, which 

 presented an insurmountable barrier to our undertaking. We 

 could see clearly that the ridge on which we stood continued in 

 the same direction on the other side of the ravine ; but I was 



1 Schumacher's ( Astronomisches Jahrbuch/ 1837, p. 192. 



