Page:Whymper - Travels amongst the great Andes of the equator.djvu/19

Rh any higher; two of our people who had got sick had remained behind, and we all the rest felt exceedingly tired and exhausted, as we certainly never were in our life... We had got much used to the influence of height, especially during our Thibetan journey, but up there not one escaped unhurt; we all felt headache.”

To attain results which might be of a more or less conclusive character, it appeared to me that it would be necessary to eliminate the complications arising from fatigue, privations, cold, and insufficiency or unsuitability of food; that the persons concerned should have been previously accustomed to mountain work; that the heights to be dealt with ought to be in excess of those at which it had been generally admitted serious inconveniences had occurred; and that preparations should be made for a prolonged sojourn at such elevations.

The Himalayas and their allied ranges offered the best field for research, and in 1874 I projected a scheme which would have taken me in the first instances on to the very ground where others had been placed hors de combat, and from these positions I proposed to carry exploration and research up to the highest attainable limits. But, just at the time when it was possible to start, our rulers entered upon the construction of a ‘scientific frontier’ for India, and rendered that region unsuitable for scientific investigations. I was recommended by experienced Anglo-Indians to defer my visit, and I followed their advice. Equally debarred, by the unhappy dissensions between Chili, Peru, and Bolivia, from travel amongst the highest of the Andes, I turned to the Republic of Ecuador, the most lofty remaining country which was accessible.

As the main object of the journey was to observe the effects of low pressure, and to attain the greatest possible height in order to experience it, Chimborazo naturally claimed the first attention, on account of its absolute elevation above the sea; and I proposed to