Our last fire had been at the pass of the _obo_, and there, from the temperature of our boiling water, we calculated the elevation to be a little over eighteen thousand feet; and I am certain that from that point, though there were some deceptive drops, we worked in the long run considerably higher. Height-sickness and the consequent fever were now a normal state for us all, and though we benefited by the sedatives that Philipson dispensed, we remained in a sort of chronic delirium. So rare was the atmosphere that even the exertion of our creeping advance brought on a terrible breathlessness and distress; blood trickled continually from our noses and ears, and we had to call a halt at least once about every fifteen minutes. These rests we took standing. Philipson would let nobody lie down till night fell; then two men remained awake at a time, to rouse the others before they had slept too long. We dared not allow any man to lie still for more than an hour at a stretch, or thereabouts, for as I have said we had no watches, for fear he shouldn't wake at all; and I am convinced Philipson would have had us push on night and day but for the sheer impossibility of negotiating those dizzy slants and ledges in the dark. At last, weary beyond imagination, but with a tremendous thrill of renewed hope, we came into a long gully in the mountains. It ran between two vertical walls of rock, and though it descended sharply for a considerable way ahead, we could see nothing beyond it but a blaze of golden sky where the sun was setting. By common consent we halted in silence, and stared, and stared. I have never been nearer tears in my life. I seemed to lose my grip. Here, it looked, the mountains came to an end. There was a valley ahead, or at least a depression; if we had not found the object of our quest, we were to find relief from the frightful cold and exhaustion and height-fever of the last few days. 'It appears,' said Philipson, in a queer, hollow voice, 'that we are going to see our goal before long. Keep well in behind me.' He advanced cautiously, sounding the gully with the butt of his rifle as he went. Now in the far distance we could see peaks again, but they were right across in the eye of the sun; it became increasingly plain there was lower ground between us and them. Philipson would halt from time to time, and stare before him fixedly. Then we saw him drop the rifle and tear out his field glasses from their case. He swayed where he stood. A moment later he had turned a dead-white face to me and handed me the binoculars without a word. I took them mechanically and raised them to my eyes. Now it was I who staggered. The sun was by this time sunk half below the distant peaks, and its dazzle had faded. There, moving across the gold-washed sky, were several black specks, far away, but having through the glasses all the appearance of enormous birds.