306 MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS. 



Hence it becomes expedient for lowlanders who 

 visit great mountain regions and travel over their 

 elevated table-lands, to exercise considerable judgment 

 in the amount of exertion they impose upom them- 

 selves, either in climbing or hunting after game. Even 

 at comparatively trifling altitudes like those of the 

 Scotch mountains, care has to be exercised in this 

 respect, and we commend the wise advice given by 

 Mr. Grimble in his book upon Highland deer-stalking, 

 to the attention of our readers: 



" The great thing in going up a long steep hill (he sug- 

 gests) is to stop, and admire the view, the moment nature 

 warns that too great a strain is being placed on the pumping 

 powers of the heart. Many a good man, out of condition, 

 has seriously injured that organ by trying to ' live ' with a 

 practised walker up a severe hill." * 



This being so at these very minor elevations, the 

 reader may guess how much greater is the necessity 

 for precaution at the great altitudes met with in regions 

 like those of the Himalayas or the Andes, where the 

 boiling point of water becomes so diminished that it 

 is possible to put the finger into it without being 

 scalded ; and where every kind of food in consequence 

 takes quite double the time to cook that it does in 

 the lowlands. Moreover even one's very gun becomes 

 largely affected in its shooting power; the same ele- 

 vations of the sights used in shooting down in the 

 plains, give quite different results high up upon lofty 

 mountains. Hence new-comers find they frequently 

 miss the fairest shots. We cannot doubt that this is 

 largely due to the diminished pressure met with by 

 the bullets in their transit through space ; but also, we 



* Deer- Stalking, by Augustus Grimble, 1886, p. 23. 



