A Plunge to Whither-Away 91
sand, on the hillsides, that now bore, here and there, only a little furze like the three days' beard on a man's chin.
Night came on, and our stream had left us by burying itself alive. We turned up a side valley and pitched camp in the dark, all very blue. We had not filled the rubber bed in the morning, and all my previous exhortations in respect to water bottles resulted only in two—mine and Achbar's. Two pints of water for seven men. Achbar's bottle went to the men. They would not accept the whiskey I offered, and whose use under such circumstances I thought even the Prophet himself would have allowed ; but he was not there to make a dispensation.
And now the worst of it came. Poor Anginieur had been always more affected by the altitude than the rest of us. He was forced to open his lips for breathing. We had been riding for days into the teeth of a cruel wind, which, I suppose, inflamed the exposed tonsils and made things worse. It was impossible to keep warm enough for continuous sleep at night, though we wore all our day-clothing and got under everything else available. This lack of sleep produced general feverishness, and now a long night had to be passed with only one cup of water, a body temperature of 103° F., and an atmospheric temperature of —2o° F.
My little stock of medicines had not seemed to be selected to meet this case, though they had been rather liberally applied during the past few days. Moreover, I never treat Europeans with the same confidence which spreads from patient to doctor
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