1842.] to Shipke, in Chinese Tartary. 377 



of our yesterday's station, which appeared 600 or 700 feet higher. 

 Being now one and a half miles nearer to it than before, we had every hope 

 of succeeding, so sent off the articles we required there as soon as we 

 could prevail upon our people to move, which was not, however, before 

 9 o'clock. We- were well equipped with instruments for making all 

 requisite observations ; we took three barometers, two thermometers, 

 a large theodolite and a small one, a perambulator, a telescope magnify- 

 ing eighty times, and a smaller one, together with a bundle of sticks to 

 try the boiling water, and a sextant and artificial horizon, with us. We 

 marched a little after ten, and overtook our people not a mile from 

 our halting place ; we had infinite trouble in getting them to go on, and 

 were obliged to keep calling out to them the whole way, at one time 

 threatening, and at another coaxing them ; to tell the truth, however, 

 we could not have walked much faster ourselves, for we felt a fulness in 

 the head, and experienced a general debility, which together with 

 headaches and pains in the ears and breast, affected us more than the 

 day before. A cold wind that benumbed our hands sprung up, 

 and increased with our height till about 3 p. m., when it died away. 

 After much annoyance, we reached the place where we put up the 

 barometer yesterday, here the man who carried the bundle of sticks sat 

 down and said he must die, as he could not proceed a step further, and 

 neither threats nor the promise of a handsome reward could induce him 

 to move ; we accordingly left him, and after an ascent of 700 feet, attain- 

 ed the top of the peak, 19,411 feet above the level of the sea. The 

 road latterly lay over disunited blocks of granite, between which we 

 found large lumps of ice transparent as crystal ; we got up the last 

 ascent without much difficulty, which is somewhat surprising. It was 

 4 p. m. when we gained the summit, so we had no time to make half 

 of the observations we wished ; the thermometer was not below twenty- 

 two degrees, but from the wind on the way up, our hands were so 

 numbed, that it was not until we had rubbed them for sometime that 

 we got the use of them. Whilst I was setting up the large theodolite, 

 my brother tried three excellent barometers, which we had the satisfac- 

 tion to see stand exactly at the same point, 14,675 inches. The Tur- 

 heegung mountain had an elevation of seventeen degrees, and was not 

 more than two miles distant ; the ink froze, and I had only a broken pencil 

 with which I got on very slowly. It was twenty minutes to five before 



