376 TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES, chap. xix. 



sea is the principal cause of sea - sickness, lie goes on to express 

 his belief that the air at great heights is the cause of mountain- 

 sickness. 



"I thought good," he says, "to speake this, to shew a strange effect, 

 which happens in some partes of the Indies, where the ayre and the wind 

 that rains makes men dazie, not lesse, but more than at sea. Some hold it 

 for a fable, others say that it is an addition ; for my parte I will speak what I 

 have tried. There is in Peru a high mountaine which they call Pariacaca, and 

 having heard speake of the alteration it bred, I went as well prepared as 

 I could . . . but notwithstanding all my provision, when I came to mount the 

 stairs, as they call them, which is tlie top of tliis mountaine, I was suddenly 

 surprized with so mortall and strange a pang that I was ready to fall from my 

 beast to the ground ; and although we were many in company, yet every one 

 made haste (without any tarrying for his companion) to free himselfe speedily 

 from this ill passage. Being then alone with one Indian, whom I intreated 

 to keep me on my beast, I was surprised with such pangs of straining and 

 casting as I thought to cast vp my soul too ; for having cast vp meate, 

 fleugme, and choUer, both yellow and greene, in the end I cast vp blood, 

 with the straining of my stomacke. To conclude, if this had continued, I 

 should vndoubtedly have died ; but this lasted not above three or four 

 lioures, that we were come into a more convenient and naturall temperature. 

 . . Some in the passage demaunded confession, thinking verily to die ; 

 others got off their beasts, beeing overcome with casting . . . and it was 

 tolde me that some have lost their lives there with this accident. . . But 

 commonly it dooth no important harme, onely this, paine and troublesome 

 distaste while it endures : and not onely the passage of Pariacaca hath this 

 propertie, but also all this ridge of the mountaine, which runnes above five 

 hundred leagues long, and in what place soever you passe, you shall find 

 strange intemperatures, yet more in some partes than in other, and rather to 

 those which mount from the sea than from the plaines.^ . . And no doubt 

 but the winde is the cause of this intemperature and strange alteration, or 

 the aire that raignes there. . . I therefore perswade my selfe, that the 

 element of the aire is there so subtile and delicate, as it is not proportionable 

 with the breathing of man, which requires a more grosse and temperate aire, 

 and I beleeve it is the cause that doth so much alter the stomacke and 

 trouble all the disposition." 



1 The reason of this being that the Andean slopes on the side of the Pacific are 

 usually steeper than those upon the east of the chain. A more abrupt reduction in 

 pressure is consequently experienced. 



