Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/25

Rh it is only an instance of Huc's exceeding ignorance of nature, with all his cleverness. The passage is so curious in this light as to be worth quotation. At the foot of the mountain he says:—

'The whole caravan halted awhile, as if to question its own strength... A subtle and light gas was anxiously indicated, which they called pestilential vapour, and all the world seemed to be downcast and discouraged. After having taken the prophylactics which tradition enjoins, and which consist in munching two or three cloves of garlick, at last we began to clamber up the flanks of the mountain. Soon the horses refused to carry their riders; we began to go afoot with short steps; insensibly all faces grew pale; the action of the heart was felt to be waning; the legs would no longer do their duty; presently we lay down, got up, and made a few steps in advance, then lay down again; and in this deplorable fashion it was that the famous Burkhan Bota was crossed.'

All this is a vigorous description of the occasional effects of rarefied atmosphere on a person using bodily exertion. The very phrase used, les vapeurs oestilentielles, is a translation of the term Bish ka hawa, or 'poison-air,' by which the pains of attenuated atmosphere are indicated on the Indian side of the Himalya. Even the cloves of garlick, mentioned by Huc, are the ancient Asiatic antidote used in such circumstances. Benedict Goës, in describing the passage of Pamir, speaks of the custom of using garlick, leeks, and dried fruits as 'an antidote to the cold,' which was so severe that animals could scarcely breathe it. Faiz Bakhsh and the Mirza both mention the use of dried fruits;and Mr. Matthew Arnold refers to a variety of the same, I have no doubt with good authority. VOL. I.