CHAP. III. INCAPABLE. ■ 49 



We were feverish, had intense headaches, and were unable to 

 satisfy our desire for air, except by breathing with open mouths. 

 This naturally parched the throat, and produced a craving for 

 drink, which we were unable to satisfy, — partly from the difficulty 

 in obtaining it, and partly from trouble in swallowing it. AVhen 

 we got enough, we could only sip, and not to save our lives could 

 we have taken a quarter of a pint at a draught. Before a mouth- 

 ful was down, we were obliged to breathe and gasp again, until 

 our throats were as dry as ever. Besides having our normal rate 

 of breathing largely accelerated, we found it impossible to sustain 

 life without every now and then giving spasmodic gulps, just 

 like fishes when taken out of water. Of course there was no 

 inclination to eat ; but we wished to smoke, and found that our 

 pipes almost refused to burn, for they, like ourselves, wanted 

 more oxygen. 



This condition of affairs lasted all night, and all the next day, 

 and I then managed to pluck up spirit enough to get out some 

 chlorate of potash, which by the advice of Dr. W. Marcet, had 

 been brought in case of need. Chlorate of potash was, I believe, 

 first used in mountain travel by Dr. Henderson, in the Karakorum 

 range, and it was subsequently employed on Sir Douglas Forsyth^s 

 Mission to Yarkund in 1873-4, apparently with good effect.^ 

 Before my departure. Dr. Marcet (with whom I had been in com- 

 munication) urged me to experiment, with a view of confirming 



' The surgeon to this expedition states that he distributed little bottles of it 

 amongst the members of the embassy, and says that, from his own experience, he 

 "can testify to its value in mitigating the distressing symptoms produced by a 

 continued deprivation of the natural quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere. The 

 large proportion of oxygen contained in the salt probably supplies to the blood 

 what in these regions it fails to derive from the air, and thus restores through 

 the stomach what the lungs lose. Whatever the explanation of its action, however, 

 there is no doubt of its efficacy in relieving the dreadful nausea and headache 

 produced by the circulation of an inefficiently oxygenated blood." — Kashmir and 

 Kashgar, by H. W. Bellew, C.S.I. 



I have been informed by members of this expedition that they ate, or munched, 

 dry chlorate of potash. 



H 



