44 TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES, chap. iii. 



however, prior to this journey had been 16,000 feet high ; and, 

 probably, had never sustained so low a pressure as 17 inches. 

 I had at various times been in the company of j^ersons who 

 said they were affected by '^ rarefaction of the air," and who were 

 unable to proceed ; but their symptoms, so far as I observed 

 them, might have been j)roduced by fatigue and unfamiliarity 

 with mountaineering, and were not of the more acute kind. 

 Although I attached little importance to such cases as had come 

 under my own personal observation, I had never felt disposed to 

 question the reality of mountain-sickness ; and on the contrary 

 had frequently maintained that it is reasonable to expect some 

 effects should be produced upon men who experience much lower 

 atmospheric pressures than those to which they are accustomed ; 

 and that it is much more remarkable to find that, apparetitly, 

 no effects of a detrimental kind are caused on many persons 

 who ascend to the height of 14-15,000 feet (or, say, sustain a 

 pressure of seventeen and a half inches), than it is to learn that 

 others have suffered at slightly lower pressures. The thing that 

 seemed most puzzling was that, at the greatest heights I had 

 reached, instead of appearing to suffer any injurious effects, the 

 effects seemed positively beneficial ; and from this I thought it 

 was not unlikely that we should be able to reach much more 

 considerable heights, and to sustain considerably lower pressures, 

 without being adversely affected. 



Some of my friends, however, who had been as high as 

 17-18,000 feet, competent mountaineers, and men who could 

 speak without exaggeration, told me that they had not been at 

 all comfortable at such elevations. It seemed certain that sooner 

 or later we should suffer like the rest of the world, but I pro- 

 posed to put off' the evil day as long as possible ; to mount 

 gradually and leisurely, by small stages, so that there should be 

 no abrupt transition ; and to get to the lowest attainable press- 

 ures (the greatest heights) by the simplest means that could 

 be devised, and by the easiest routes that could be found, in 



