312 EFFECTS OF RAREFIED AIR. 



wore off, however, as I became more accustomed to passing 

 the night in such intensely cold and rarefied air. 



Whilst in this high valley, I, strange to say, never suffered 

 in the slightest degree from the nausea and headache I ex- 

 perienced on the open and tolerably level summits of the 

 Chang la and Marsemik, even when at as great altitudes. 

 Here I felt nothing more than shortness of breath when 

 ascending ever so gentle a rise, and a weight about the legs, 

 as if gravity were exercising an undue amount of influence 

 on them. On the upper ranges of the Himalayas, the natives 

 attribute the more unpleasant sensations to the exhalations 

 from certain poisonous plants 1 growing at great heights per- 

 meating the air ; and my shikarees, when telling me about 

 shooting localities close under the snowy range, would de- 

 scribe some of them as being bad for bhik (poison), whilst 

 others which were as high, or higher, they said, were free 

 from it. Although this idea is generally ridiculed by 

 Europeans, it is so universally entertained throughout the 

 Himalayas by the hill-men, as to make one almost think 

 there must be some foundation for it. I certainly have seen 

 the deadly aconite flourishing luxuriantly on the higher 

 ranges, where the tall spike -like heads of its intense blue 

 blossom have a very striking and beautiful effect, shooting 

 up, as they often do, from some moist green spot, thickly 

 besprinkled with buttercups, amidst grey rocks and snow- beds. 



At great heights I have always felt the effects of rarefied air 

 more on table-lands, or where the surroundings were com- 

 paratively level or undulating, than at similar elevations 

 where they were very steep, either upward or downward and 

 I believe my experience in this respect is not singular. More- 

 over, it is remarkable that at Leh, which is under 12,000 feet, 

 but situated on an extensive open plateau, even the Tartars 



*A Californian shrub, commonly called "poison-oak," is said by the 

 natives to have a noxious effect on those who inhale the air in its close 

 vicinity. 



