Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Thermometer Descended As
Low As To Five Degrees.
Our guides made a large fire with the dry
branches of retama.
Having neither tents nor cloaks, we lay down on
some masses of rock, and were singularly incommoded by the flame
and smoke, which the wind drove towards us. We had attempted to
form a kind of screen with cloths tied together, but our enclosure
took fire, which we did not perceive till the greater part had been
consumed by the flames. We had never passed a night on a point so
elevated, and we then little imagined that we should, one day, on
the ridge of the Cordilleras, inhabit towns higher than the summit
of the volcano we were to scale on the morrow. As the temperature
diminished, the peak became covered with thick clouds. The approach
of night interrupts the play of the ascending current, which,
during the day, rises from the plains towards the high regions of
the atmosphere; and the air, in cooling, loses its capacity of
suspending water. A strong northerly wind chased the clouds; the
moon at intervals, shooting through the vapours, exposed its disk
on a firmament of the darkest blue; and the view of the volcano
threw a majestic character over the nocturnal scenery. Sometimes
the peak was entirely hidden from our eyes by the fog, at other
times it broke upon us in terrific proximity; and, like an enormous
pyramid, threw its shadow over the clouds rolling beneath our feet.
About three in the morning, by the sombrous light of a few fir
torches, we started on our journey to the summit of the Piton.
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