Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/431

Rh to the same fact. If I recollect right, Mr. Bowditch ascribed the error into which we had fallen to our guides having conducted us to one of the summits less elevated than the peak; an imposition which it is well known they frequently attempt to practise, for the purpose of saving themselves the fatigue of a part of the ascent. The day on which our excursion was performed was certainly one on which such an attempt was likely to be made, and not unlikely to be successful. It was mid-winter, the paths scarcely discernible from the depth of snow, and the summits for many hundred feet enveloped in cloud. We had been cautioned, however, both by Mr. Veitch and Mr. Blackburne, that the guides were not to be relied on; and the appearances of the ground and of surrounding objects on the Peak itself had been carefully described to us, that we might not be wholly at their mercy. Twice they did attempt deception, and twice the description which had been given to us enabled us to detect and defeat it. The third summit to which they conducted us, and which was considerably higher than either of the others, corresponded so well with the description, that, influenced also in some degree possibly by the solemn protestations of the guides, we believed ourselves to be really at the Peak; and we were confirmed in this opinion on our return to Funchal by Mr. Veitch, who, though he had predicted failure on account of the season of the year and the state of the weather, believed, from our description, that we had actually succeeded. We therefore ourselves entertained no doubt on the subject.

"It is very possible, nevertheless, that Mr. Bowditch's surmise may be the true explanation. There is, however, another mode of accounting for the erroneous height which we assigned, which it may at least afford a useful caution to others to mention. The barometer which I employed was one of Newman's, with an iron cistern, enclosed in a circular wooden case having an opening by which a few inches only of the upper part of the column of mercury