a prolonged campaign, as a lotion compounded with two or three grains to an ounce of water will give relief; but of patience you can hardly lay in too large a stock, as a single had day sometimes throws a man on his back for weeks.[1]
The whole face suffers under the alternation of heat, cold, and glare, and few mountain-travellers remain long without having their visages blistered and cracked in all directions. Now, in respect to this matter, prevention is better than cure; and, though these inconveniences cannot be entirely escaped, they may, by taking trouble, be deferred for a long time. As a travelling cap for mountain expeditions, there is scarcely anything better than the kind of helmet used by Arctic travellers, and with the eyes well shaded by its projecting peak and covered with the ordinary goggles one ought not, and will not, suffer much from snow-blindness. I have found, however, that it does not sufficiently shade the face, and that it shuts out sound too much when the side-flaps are down; and I consequently adopt a woollen head-piece, which almost entirely covers or shades the face and extends well downwards on to the shoulders. One hears sufficiently
- ↑ I extract from No. 63 of the Alpine Journal the following note by Gustav de Veh, a retired Russian officer, upon the prevention of snow-blindness. "We were on the march home along the mountain plains, when, dazzled by the intense sun-rays reflected by the endless snow-fields we were marching along, my eyelids lost all power to open; I felt my elbow touched, and, looking through my fingers, I beheld one of our friendly highlanders preparing a kind of black paste by mixing gunpowder with snow. The General told me to let him do what he wanted. The Circassian applied the black stuff under my eyes, on my cheeks, and to the sides of my nose. To my astonishment I could then open my eyes, and felt no more difficulty to see plainly and clearly everything. I have tried that experiment many times since, and it never failed to relieve me, although I used common Indian-ink and black water-colour, instead of the above-mentioned paste."
