The great mountain called Aconcagua,' the first ascent of which is described in Mr. FitzGerald's recently published book, "The Highest Andes," is situated on the frontiers of Chili and the Argentine Republic, about ninety miles to the east of Valparaiso, and 700 miles to the west of Buenos Aires, only a few miles away from and to the north of the pass over the Andes called the Cumbre,' which is commonly used by persons passing between those two cities. Even its name is not found in geographical books published in the early part of the nineteenth century, and it seems to have been measured first by officers who were engaged in the celebrated surveying expedition under Admiral Fitzroy. Darwin says in Chapter XII of his "Journal," "the volcano of Aconcagua is particularly magnificent. This huge and irregularly conical mass has an elevation greater than that of Chimborazo; for, from measurements made by officers of the Beagle, its height is no less than 23,000 feet!" And in a subsequent passage he speaks of witnessing a considerable eruption of the volcano of Osorno (near the Bay of San Carlos in Chiloe), on January 19, 1835, and says that he was surprised to hear that Aconcagua, 480 miles northwards, was in action on the same night. It is now said that Aconcagua is not a volcano! Darwin, it will be remarked, only quotes a rumor

1 The name is a Spanish one, and is pronounced something like Ar-kon-kar-goo-whoo-ar.

2 The Highest Andes," by E. A. FitzGerald. Methuen & Co., London, 1899.

3 For the Cumbre Pass see the "Leisure Hour" for 1895, p. 518.

This result differs materially from the height telegraphed to the "Daily Chronicle," and published in that paper on January 18 and February 17, 1897. "The mountain is over 24,000 feet bigh." "The barometer at the top fell to 12

and does not speak from personal knowledge. Since the time of Fitzroy's voyage, all sorts of elevations from 15,000 to 25,000 feet have been assigned to Aconcagua, most of them, no doubt, mere guesses, not derived from observations; but the result of the survey of the FitzGerald Expedition shows that the officers of the Beagle were right, for the finally deduced altitude comes out just a little over 23,000 feet. This appears to be the greatest height that any one has hitherto reached upon a mountain.

Mr. FitzGerald, the leader of the Expedition, was born at Connecticut, U.S.A., on May 10, 1871, and is known from the journey that he made in New Zealand in 1895, upon which he explored, almost single-handed, some portions of the snowy mountains in the south island, and made several ascents." Upon the journey in the Andes, he was accompanied by three Englishmen, Messrs. de Trafford, Vines and Gosse; and took out six Swiss and Italians as assistants, namely, Mattias Zurbriggen, the two brothers Pollinger, Jos. Lochmatter, Nicolas Lanti and Fritz Weibel. Zurbriggen, who led the rest, is a rolling stone. From a sort of biography of him, that was published nearly simultaneously with Mr. FitzGerald's volume, one learns that before he got to the age of thirty he had acted as herd-boy, carpenter's boy, stable-help,

inches." If the barometer had been a mercurial and in proper order, a fall to 12 inches would have indicated an altitude, not of 24,000, but of about 25,000 feet. It now appears that "the barometer" was an aneroid.

See the work entitled "Climbs in the New Zealand Alps."

"From the Alps to the Andes," being the autobiography of a Mountain-Guide, by Mattais Zurbriggen. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1839.

miner's laborer, miner, railway navvy, tassel-maker, diligence-driver or smith. He can shoe a horse or mend a boot. Since 1886 he has been a Mountain Guide, and in that capacity has been twice in New Zealand, and twice in the Himalayas, besides the Andes. He made his début under Sir Martin (then Mr.) Conway in the Karakoram Mountains, and may be considered to have been discovered by him, for, up to that time, he was an unknown man. Unlike many Alpine Guides, he has a taste for foreign travel, and becomes less homesick than the generality of his fellows.

The party left Southampton on October 15, 1896, Buenos Aires on November 29, and, after travelling over the Argentine Great Western and Transandine Railways, descended on December 7 at the terminus of the latter line, at Punta de las Vacas (7,858 feet). This station is only twenty miles from the summit of Aconcagua, and one can ride up in a vehicle on the route to the Cumbre Pass, until one is within thirteen miles of it, at Puente del Inca (8,948 feet). The way taken after this was up a valley called Horcones, which led round the western side of the mountain for about fourteen miles; and when quadrupeds could go no farther, an encampment was made at the height of 14,000 feet, almost due west of the summit, and distant from it about two and a half miles. Direct approach was impossible the intervening cliffs were much too steep-and

a course was

shaped to the northeast, and an upper encampment was made on a ridge to the northwest of the summit, at a height which was estimated at 18,700 feet. From this highest camp the summit was ultimately gained, but only at the sixth attempt.

Mules were employed between Puente

7 The height is apparently obtained from simple inspection of an aneroid. This appears to be the case from the two following passages: "The aneroid gave the height as 19,000 English feet." -FitzGerald's "Highest Andes," "Lookp. 50.

del Inca and the camp at about 14,000 feet, and the experiences of the party with their animals and the drivers were of the usual character. Mules are mulish, and South American arrieros are almost beyond description. Many of the stories that are related resemble what one has heard before, but this one is quite new. Through scarcity of food the mules got so hungry that "they consumed that morning two wicker-chairs and a large quantity of the roof of one the rooms, which was composed of bamboo overlaid with mud" (p. 245). That was towards the end of the journey; and from the beginning they found that the sure-footed mule stumbles and slides like other quadrupeds, and can survive a good deal of knocking about. When some of the party were crossing a ravine, a mule slipped and fell back on its haunches. "I was behind," says Mr. Vines, "but the way being too narrow for me to get at its head I shouted to the arriero, who seized the halter and tried to get it up. But he could not do it, and

then with a plunge or two it rolled over on its side, fortunately by this movement unhooking the packs, which I was just able to seize and keep from following the mule, as it went bound ing and rolling down the steep incline. Then, on the verge of the precipice, the poor beast made a desperate struggle to regain a footing, while anxious faces watched him from above. With a tremendous plunge, however, he fell backwards and disappeared from view. I sent Lanti down to secure the harness, and shoot the animal if not already dead. Mingled cries of exhortation reached us from below, and soon, to our surprise, Lanti appeared leading the mule. It was a sorry looking beast by this time, cut and bruised in every part of its body; but it seemed to have sustained no serious

ing at my aneroid, I found it registered an elevation of 19,000 feet."-Zurbriggen's "Autobiog raphy." p. 205. The elevation adopted is probably much too high.

injury, and, lightly loaded, continued to work for the rest of the day.( Pp. 161, 162.)

Both in the Himalayas and in the Andes, Zurbriggen has exhibited considerable ability in tumbling off the animals he rode, or in getting into trouble with them. He has a fixed idea, it is said, that he will die by drowning, and he came pretty nearly to an end in that way when crossing a stream in the Horcones Valley.

He started well, mounted on one of our most powerful mules, but when he got to the middle of the river I was startled and horrified to see him turn his mule's head down stream. This was fatal; the animal at once lost its balance, and rolled over, precipitating him into the raging water. In crossing these streams it is necessary to keep the horses' heads well up against the current, for should they get sideways, and the water strike them with full force, they invariably lose their footing. Poor Zurbriggen, the instant his mule rolled over with him, was swept rapidly down the stream, turning over and over with the animal, so that at times he and at times the mule was uppermost. He could not swim, but even had he been able to, I doubt whether it would have availed him much, the force of the water being so great. In another moment they both struck on a great boulder, Zurbriggen underneath. The force of the water held the mule tightly jammed against the rock, effectually pinning his rider underneath. In a moment I was alongside of him, the arriero close behind, invoking all the saints to our assist

ance.

I noticed that he was engrossed solely with the welfare of his animal; the fact that a man was rapidly drowning before his eyes was an unimportant detail to him. It was necessary to move the mule first before we could help Zurbriggen; so we plunged into the torrent, and tried to dislodge the unwieldy beast. Tomas wanted to haul him towards the bank; I, on the contrary, wished to shove him into midstream again, as I saw it was easier to accomplish and would therefore release Zurbriggen sooner. I

seized him by the head, and tried to press him away, while Tomas in a wild frenzy of excitement clung to his tail. (Pp. 68, 69.)

He was ultimately fished out, with a damaged shoulder, and prudently abstained for a time from riding; but he at length remounted, saying to Mr. FitzGerald," "I know I do get killed today,' and, as luck would have it, we had not gone more than a mile when he and his mule quietly rolled over the edge of a rock precipice. The mule was not hurt, but Zurbriggen had fallen on his bad shoulder. This was a finishing blow to his nerves. When I ran and picked him up he turned to me and said, slowly, 'You see, I do get killed to-day.'" However he revived; and made the first ascent of Aconcagua twelve days afterwards.

It would appear that previously to Mr. FitzGerald's expedition only one attempt had been made to ascend Aconcagua, namely, by Dr. Paul Guessfeldt, of Berlin, who approached the mountain from the Chilian side, in 1883. Dr. Guessfeldt is known to be energetic and daring, but his dash at Aconcagua can scarcely be regarded seriously; for, in starting from Europe with only a single assistant (who failed him before he got on the spot), he evidently did not grasp the necessities of the problem which he proposed to solve. Beyond knowing that Dr. Guessfeldt had made his attempt somewhere from the North, Mr. FitzGerald's party had no clue as to how the summit was likely to reached; and it is to the credit of Zurbriggen that he seems to have quickly selected a practicable, and perhaps the only feasible, route. So far as the nature of the ground was concerned, the ascent was an easy one. It was not necessary to perform gymnastic feats on rocks, or to cut for hours up riven ice. If such things had been inevitable, it is highly probable that not one of the party would have reached the summit.

be

The mules, it has been said, went to the head of the Horcones Valley. From that point everything had to be transported by men; and they started at once to mount the northwest slopes of the peak, but only got up about a couple of thousand feet when night came on. Although they had a tent, it is said that they simply crawled into their sleeping-bags.

No one had the energy even to make for himself a smooth place to lie down on. We sought shelter under a friendly overhanging rock, where we huddled as close to one another as possible for the sake of warmth, and tried to get what rest we could. During the night, one of my Swiss porters, a tall, powerfully built man, Lochmatter by name, fell ill. He suffered terribly from nausea and faintness, which it seemed impossible to check.

This is referred to on p. 80 as "a terrible night." The next morning they went on, and towards mid-day

I saw, from my own condition and from that of the men with me, that it would be unwise-if not impossible-to think of climbing higher that night. Lochmatter was growing pale and ill again, so I was obliged to send him down with another man to our lower camp, telling him to remain there until he had perfectly recovered.

The faintness and want of energy was not the result of ordinary fatigue. Mr. FitzGerald does not attempt to disguise that it was due to the diminution in atmospheric pressure. "We were all feeling weak and ill in the morning," he says, "and I soon came to the conclusion that it would be impossible that day to reach the saddle which Zurbriggen had recommended as a camping-ground" (p. 55). On December 26 they got up to this place, which is estimated to have been 18,700 feet high; and, after one night there, finding that life was unpleasant at such an elevated

position, descended to the lower camp in the valley.

Though the temperatures which were experienced were not extraordinarily severe, and not at all lower than might have been expected-the minimum recorded being 1 degree F., which is a degree of cold that multitudes of people sustain without inconvenience-Mr. FitzGerald says that he saw the men actually sit down and cry like children, "so discouraged were they by the intense cold;" and later in the volume it is related that the cold felt "so intense that the men sat down and absolutely cried, great tears rolling down their faces, simply because of the cold, which they were powerless to resist" (p. 151).

On December 30 (Midsummer in these parts) they went up again to the high camp, and on the following morning started with the view of reaching the summit, which looked so very near that they thought it could be got at in five or six hours. An hour had scarcely elapsed when Zurbriggen was found to be in difficulties. The morning was cold.

Seeing that his face was very white, I asked him if he felt quite well. He answered that he felt perfectly well, but that he was so cold he had no sensation whatever left in his feet; for a few moments he tried dancing about, and kicking his feet against the rocks to get back his circulation. I began to get alarmed, for frozen feet are one of the greatest dangers one has to contend against in Alpine climbing. The porters who had been lagging behind now came up to us; I at once told Zurbriggen to take his boots off, and we all set to work to rub his feet. To my horror I discovered that the circulation had practically stopped. We continued working hard upon him, but he said that he felt nothing. We took off his stockings, and tried rubbing first with snow, and then with brandy; we were getting more and more alarmed, and were even beginning to fear that the case might be hopeless, and might

even necessitate amputation. At last we observed that his face was becoming pallid, and slowly and gradually he began to feel a little pain. We hailed this sign with joy, for it meant of course that vitality was returning to the injured parts, and we renewed our efforts; the pain now came on more and more severely; he writhed and shrieked and begged us to stop, as he was well-nigh maddened by suffering. Knowing, however, that this treatment was the one hope for him, we continued to rub, in spite of his cries, literally holding him down, for the pain was getting so great that he could no longer control himself, and tried to fight us off. . . We slipped on his boots without lacing them, and, supporting him between two of us, we began slowly to get him down the mountain side. At intervals we stopped to repeat the rubbing operation, he expostulating with us vainly the while. After about an hour and a half, we succeeded in getting him back to our tent, where he threw himself down and begged to be allowed to go to sleep. We would not permit this, however, and taking off his boots again, we continued the rubbing operation, during which he shouted in agony. (Pp. 61, 62.)

There ended the second attempt to ascend Aconcagua.

The next day (January 1), Zurbriggen, Mr. FitzGerald and Louis Pollinger started again, and got to a greater height. This time Pollinger was the first to go wrong. He turned "a sickly, greenish hue." All the color left his lips, and he began to complain of sickness and dizziness. They progressed upwards until 2 P.M., when all were done up, and "obliged to stop and lie down from sheer exhaustion." The condition of the three seems to have been similar. Even Zurbriggen admitted that he did not think he would be capable of reaching the summit.

Coming down was almost worse than going up. Fatigued and numbed as we were, we constantly fell down. a terrible and stunning depres

.

overcome by acute pains and nausea I remained thus for some time, but as I did not improve I was reluctantly forced to turn back.. About noon I crawled down to the camp, and sat waiting there in a helpless and hopeless state, half unconscious About two o'clock the sun had gone round and I was sitting in the shadow, while the wind changed and blew upon me with full force. So feeble was I, both in brain and body, that I had not the wit or energy to move some twenty yards away, though I could thus have escaped from the wind, and received what little warmth the sunlight afforded.

Zurbriggen did not turn back with the others, but he stopped far short of the summit, and returned after sunset, quite exhausted and "speechless with thirst and fatigue." On the following morning (January 13), the result of a further attempt was even more disappointing, for the day was the finest they had had; there was little wind and the sun rose in a cloudless sky. After going up some distance, Mr. FitzGerald says, "I was again desperately sick. I rested for over an hour, but it was no use," and so they all went down.

We now come to the sixth and successful effort to ascend Aconcagua, on