eat, if not to enjoy. That night we slept better, one reason being
that the wind did not blow as hard as it had the night before. The
weather continued fine. Watkins was due to arrive from Arequipa in
a day or two, but we decided not to wait for him or run any further
risk of encountering an early summer snowstorm. The next morning,
after adjusting our fifty-pound loads to our unaccustomed backs,
we left camp about nine o'clock. We wore Appalachian Mountain
Club snow-creepers, or crampons, heavy Scotch mittens, knit woolen
helmets, dark blue snow-glasses, and very heavy clothing. It will be
remembered by visitors to the Zermatt Museum that the Swiss guides
who once climbed Huascaran, in the northern Peruvian Andes, had been
maimed for life by their experiences in the deep snows of those great
altitudes. We determined to take no chances, and in order to prevent
the possibility of frost-bite each man was ordered to put on four pairs
of heavy woolen socks and two or three pairs of heavy underdrawers.

Professor Coello and Corporal Gamarra wore large, heavy boots. I
had woolen puttees and "Arctic" overshoes. Tucker improvised what
he regarded as highly satisfactory sandals out of felt slippers and
pieces of a rubber poncho. Since there seemed to be no rock-climbing
ahead of us, we decided to depend on crampons rather than on the
heavy hob-nailed climbing boots with which Alpinists are familiar.

The snow was very hard until about one o'clock. By three o'clock it
was so soft as to make further progress impossible. We found that,
loaded as we were, we could not climb a gentle rise faster than twenty
steps at a time. On the more level snow fields we took twenty-five
or thirty steps before stopping to rest. At the end of each stint
it seemed as though they would be the last steps we should ever
take. Panting violently, fatigued beyond belief, and overcome with