128 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



several months, collecting material for his " Polit- 

 ical Essay on the Island of Cuba." From there he 

 went to Quito, in Ecuador, crossing one of the 

 most difficult passes in the Andes, "the path so 

 narrow that it rarely exceeds twelve or sixteen 

 inches in width, and for the most part resembles 

 an open gallery cut in the rock," and the Paramos 

 of Pasto, "desert regions where, at a height of 

 about twelve thousand feet above the sea, all vege- 

 tation ceases, and the cold is so intense as to pene- 

 trate to the very bones." 



In June, 1802, they reached Quito, where, five 

 years previously, an earthquake had destroyed 

 forty thousand people. This month they made 

 the ascent of Chimborazo, at that time regarded as 

 the highest mountain in the world. "At certain 

 places," he says, "where it was very steep, we 

 were obliged to use both hands and feet, and the 

 edges of the rock were so sharp that we were 

 painfully cut, especially on our hands." As they 

 climbed on, " one after another, we all began to feel 

 indisposed, and experienced 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. ... A few rock-lichens 

 were to be observed above the line of perpetual 

 snow, at a height of sixteen thousand nine hundred 

 and twenty feet ; the last green moss we noticed 

 was growing about twenty-six hundred feet lower. 

 A butterfly was captured by M. Bonpland, at a 



