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.