in which, as we were informed, it is
constantly enveloped.

We started at three in the morning, and after infinite sinuosities and
meanderings over this hilly country, we arrived, by nine o'clock, at the
foot of the Bourhan-Bota. There the caravan halted for a moment, as if
to poise its strength; everybody measured, with his eyes, the steep and
rugged paths of the lofty ascent, gazed with anxiety at a light, thin
vapour, which we were told was the pestilential vapour in question, and
for awhile the entire party was completely depressed and discouraged.
After having taken the hygeianic measures prescribed by tradition, and
which consist in masticating two or three cloves of garlic, we began to
clamber up the side of the mountain. Before long, the horses refused to
carry their riders, and all, men as well as animals, advanced on foot,
and step by step; by degrees, our faces grew pale, our hearts sick, and
our legs incapable of supporting us; we threw ourselves on the ground,
then rose again to make another effort; then once more prostrated
ourselves, and again rose to stumble on some paces farther; in this
deplorable fashion was it that we ascended the famous Bourhan-Bota.
Heavens! what wretchedness it was we went through; one's strength seemed
exhausted, one's head turning round, one's limbs dislocated; it was just
like a thoroughly bad sea-sickness; and yet, all the while, one has to
retain enough energy, not only to drag one's self on, but, moreover, to
keep thrashing the animals which lie down at every step, and can hardly
be got to move. One portion of the caravan, as a measure of precaution,
stopped half way up the mountain, in a gully where the pestilential
vapours, they said, were not so dense; the other portion of the caravan,
equally as a measure of precaution, exerted their most intense efforts in
order to make their way right up to the top, so as to avoid being
asphyxiated by that dreadful air, so completely charged with carbonic
acid. We were of the number of those who ascended the Bourhan-Bota at
one stretch. On reaching its summit, our lungs dilated at their ease.
The descent of the mountain was mere child's play, and we were soon able
to set up our tent far from the murderous air we had encountered on the
ascent.

The Bourhan-Bota mountain has this remarkable particularity, that the
deleterious vapour for which it is noted, is only found on the sides
facing the east and the north; elsewhere, the air