p. 12 | ON THE LAVA

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 32.

ON THE LAVA.

Over loose blocks of lava, with guide in advance, the dusky cavalcade takes its way. The stones ring out under the feet, in the frosty air, with a sharp, metallic clang. Like long white arms the down-reaching fields of snow beckon the climber, their upper portion lost in the darkness. Silence holds all the company for a time. Then, in a kind of spontaneous reaction from the oppressiveness of the situation, all hands begin to shout and sing. Jokes and quips set in. As soon as the first long serpentine tongue of snow is reached there is a shout and scamper along the line. Of brief duration, however, is such hilarity. The brisk exercise in this rare and rapidly rarefying atmosphere is beginning to tell upon heart and lungs. These organs labor furiously. Pretty soon the man ahead or behind is discovered sitting down with but slender regard to the nature of the seat he occupies. We are now at an altitude of some 11,000 or 12,000 feet.

By daylight the broad snow-field is reached and the real business of the day begins. At an angle ranging from thirty to forty-five degrees the hard, crisp, glittering snow stretches upward for two miles or more. It is ice rather than snow. Yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock the surface was somewhat soft and will be so again under the full rays of the sun this afternoon. But at this present moment it is so hard as to make the footing difficult. Our company made a solemn compact yesterday to keep together. They are beginning already to break the compact. The swifter-footed are growing impatient with this snail's pace. The sittings down occur at briefer intervals, the halts grow more and more protracted. The weaker-kneed are growing less sanguine of success. Then comes the inevitable crisis when some member shall give out. It is almost always a man who does this and not a woman. This event occurs usually about an hour or so after sunrise. The warm rays bring a delicious sense of comfort first to the benumbed fingers, as if bags of eider-down had been bound around them, then gradually diffuses itself through the whole system. To this succeeds an almost irresistible drowsiness. Apart from the awfulness of being left alone on this desolate height, one could easily choose to sink down upon the hard snow and sleep. And the horrible thirst! Lips are parched, and jaws and tongue and throat. Now is the time for a few swallows of cold tea and a slowly munched cracker to start again the checked salivary secretions. But woe to the unfortunate wight who yields to the temptation of snow-eating. However, almost everyone does yield to it. All cautions to the contrary go for nothing. One is sure he'll die if he don't slake this consuming thirst; he can only die if he does eat snow to slake it with. And so he fevers his burning mouth and throat still more. With some a serious nausea like seasickness begins to be experienced. With others the lips turn a black purple, and the nostrils and the ears. It fairly seems as though the blood would spurt through them. A man can know now to a dead certainty what condition of lungs and heart he is in. Some have learned it to their serious and life-long cost.

From various causes, one after another, to a third of our party of a dozen, succumb. A few, with revived courage, presently come on; others descend ignominiously to the horse camp, where at noon we shall find them, all prepared to demonstrate that they could easily enough have done the thing if they had chosen, but that it was out of this or that highly prudential consideration purely they forbore.