Humboldt and his party, on their memorable ascent of the volcano of
Tunguragna, in the Nevado del Chimborazo, at the elevation of 19,300
feet, the highest spot ever trod by man, suffered severely. The air was
reduced to half its usual density, and felt intensely cold and piercing.
Respiration was laborious; and blood oozed from their eyes, their lips,
and their gums. Another peculiarity of great elevations, noticed by
travellers, is the astonishing clearness of the atmosphere. Captain Head
was struck with it in the case of a condor shot, which appeared to fall
within thirty or forty yards; but on sending one of his miners to bring
it back, to his astonishment he found that the distance was such, as to
take up above half an hour, going and returning. In Norway, a friend of
the present writer stepped out of a boat to visit a spot, as he
conceived, of a few hundred yards distant, when in fact it proved to be
some miles. In the Pyrenees, the celebrated cascade of Gavarni appears
about a short mile from the auberge, where travellers frequently leave
their mules to rest, while they proceed on foot, little aware that they
are thereby exposing themselves to a long and laborious walk of above an
hour's duration. In the Andes, Humboldt remarks this phenomenon; stating
that in the mountains of Quito he could distinguish the white poncho of
a person on horseback, at the distance of seventeen miles. He also
notices the extreme clear and steady light of the stars, which we can
vouch to be true to a most extraordinary degree even in Europe, having
distinctly seen the planet Venus, in a dazzling sunshine, at half past
eleven, from the summit of the port of Venasque, in the Pyrenees.
_London Review_.
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