CHAP. III. PUZZLED. 77 



have stopped at the foot of the Southern Walls, at or about the 

 place marked F upon the illustration in Chapter XIX., and by 

 a little cross on the plate facing p. 24, for his description agrees 

 with that place and cannot apply to any other. ^ I am unable to 

 explain how he found that this place was elevated 19,698 feet 

 above the sea ; still less do I understand, if he stood at this 

 spot, having the Glacier de Debris on his right, and the Glacier 

 de Thielmann on his left, and magnificent sections of glacier 

 crowning the Upper Walls, immediately above him, how it was 

 he declared that he had seen no glaciers upon Chimborazo I 



There is less certainty that Humboldt arrived at this spot. It 

 is impossible to determine from his own narrative where he actu- 

 ally went. Boussingault says he knew that Humboldt made his 

 attempt upon the side of the Arenal ; and, inasmuch as the route 

 we followed is the only way by which the elevation of 18,500 feet 

 can be reached with reasonable facility on that side, it seems not 

 impossible that he also got as far as the foot of the Southern 

 Walls ; ^ and, if he arrived there, this also would be the place at 

 which his progress would be arrested. Go farther he could not, for 

 the four hundred and fifty feet ^ of broken rock and intermingled ice 

 in the breach form an insurmountable barrier to the uninitiated. 



The view from this position is one of the most striking upon 

 the mountain. It commands the ridge up which we made our 

 way, and embraces the whole length of the Glacier de Debris, the 



1 '* Nous nous trouvions au pied d'un prisme de trachyte dont la base superieure, 

 recouverte d'une coupole de neige, forme le sommet du Chimborazo. . . . De toutes 

 parts nous etions environnes de precipices. ... La couleur foncee de la roche cou- 

 trastait de la maniere la plus tranchee avee la blancheur ^blouissante de la neige. 

 De longues stalagmites de glace paraissaient suspendues sur nos tetes." 



2 There are, however, several reasons why this is dubious. In AspecU of Nature^ 

 vol. 2, p. 34, he states that his highest point was "on the eastern declivity of the 

 Chimborazo." By no stretch of the imagination can "the side of the Arenal" be 

 made the eastern side of the mountain. In Karl Bruhns' Life it is said that 

 progress was stopped by " a ravine, some 400 feet deep, and 60 feet wide," and there 

 is no such ravine or cleft upon the south-west ridge. 



8 We measured the breach with a line on Jan. 6. 



