Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

'A curious beetle.'

'Very curious indeed. One day I shall really set myself to the study of beetles. My lake too is on the far side. It seems to me that we should reach the post-house in plenty of time for the men to settle in and for you and me to go on to my lake. At this time of year it will not even skim over with ice until well after sunset, and we may find ducks and geese by the hundred. We will take Molina, the best llama, to carry what we shoot.'

'If you are as mistaken about the birds as you are about my head for heights, Molina will have no great burden to carry, at all,' reflected Stephen, who had often heard, each time with deeper dismay, of the spidery Inca bridges upon which intrepid Indians crossed torrents raging a thousand feet below them, even hauling immobilized animals over by means of a primitive windlass, the whole construction swaying wildly to and fro as even a single traveller reached the middle, the first false step being the last.

'How long does it take to fall a thousand feet?' he asked himself, and as the troop set out he tried to make the calculation; but his arithmetical powers were and always had been weak. 'Long enough to make an act of contrition, at all events,' he said, abandoning the answer of seven hours and odd seconds as absurd.

On and on: up and up. This had been the pattern for a great while, but now the up and up was growing far more pronounced ; now it was often a question of leading his mule again; and now he had to concentrate his mind on keeping up wherever the road grew steep. His breath was coming short; his heart beat a hundred and twenty strokes a minute; his eyesight wavered.

'You are in a brown study, I find,' said Eduardo, whose spirits had revived with the altitude.

'I was contemplating on the physiology of animals that live in a rarefied atmosphere,' said Stephen. 'Surely the exact dissection of a vicuna would show some very remarkable adaptations?'

'There can be no doubt of it,' replied Eduardo. 'And at present we too mean to adapt our own persons for the last stretch with a draught of mate. Do you choose to dismount?'

Stephen did so, very carefully avoiding the least hint of unsteadiness. He could scarcely see, but he was most unwilling to show any sign of the mountain-sickness that had certainly come upon him. When his head cleared from the effort of swinging out of the saddle he looked up and saw to his relief that they were now quite near the snow-line, above sixteen thousand feet. He had never been so high, and he had every right to be mountain-sick: this was no discreditable weakness.

Already smoke was rising from the guanaco dung, the woody fungus heads and a few of those bushes that burned green; and presently the gourds of mate were passing round. Stephen drew in the hot cheering gusts through his silver tube, ate a dried peach from Chile, and then like all the rest he drew out his pouch of coca-leaves, preparing a moderate ball spread with quinoa ash, chewed it slightly to start the flow and then eased it into his cheek. The familiar tingling began almost at once, followed by the beginning of that curious numbness which had so startled him many years ago.

Mountain-sickness faded, anxiety with it; strength returned. He gazed at the climbing road, the last stretch, three steep traverses zigzagging up to the post-house, into the snow and over the pass. It would be walking every step of the way. He did not mind at all.

'Will you not ride, don Esteban?' asked Eduardo, holding the stirrup for him.

'No, sir,' said Stephen. 'The animal is extremely tired - look at his hanging lip, God be with him - whereas I am now quite recovered, a sprightly popinjay.'

A little less sprightly by the time they reached the massive post-house, built, like some of those sections of the road cut deep into the mountainside, of vast rocks so exactly shaped that they outstripped all reasonable conjecture, a little less sprightly, but perfectly human. He took the liveliest interest in the yaretta fungus growing on these rocks and on the inner walls, and Eduardo said to him, 'How glad I am to see you so brisk. Although we reached here in such good time I was afraid you might be too tired to see my lake. Do you think that after say an hour's rest you would like to go? There is some cloud in the east, and as you know winds sometimes get up in the evening; but an hour's rest would still leave us time.'

'Dear Eduardo,' said Stephen, 'the earlier we go the more we shall see. I fairly dote on alpine lakes, and this one as I recall has a fine fringe of reeds.'

It had indeed a fine fringe of reeds, a very fine deep fringe, unique in Stephen Maturin's extensive experience of reeds in that they grew not out of glutinous mud but from a layer of broken stones brought down by some not far distant combination of earthquake and flood from one of the nearby glaciers. This allowed them to walk out dryfoot with their guns and spyglasses, leaving Molina on a long tether among the clumps of spiny ichu grass.

When first they had seen it from above, at some distance, the lake was clearly full of wildfowl - rafts of duck, geese at the far end where a stream from the northern glacier came in, and gulls over all - but by the time they had made their way through to a sheltered point near the open water that allowed them a clear view although they remained unseen, they found that there were also remarkable numbers of rails, waders and the smaller herons.

'What wealth!' they cried, and began a first eager census of genera at least before the identification or attempted identification of species. Presently they grew calmer, leaving the fine-work until they could obtain specimens, and they sat at their ease, gazing over the water at a distant crowd of flamingoes, gabbling steadily in their goose-like manner. A straggling line of newcomers, pale pink, scarlet and black in the declining sun, passed over to join the rest; and Stephen, watching them as they crossed from left to right, observed, 'For me flamingoes belong essentially to the Mediterranean lagoons, by definition at the level of the sea; and to find them up here, in an air so thin it is a wonder that their wings can bear them, gives the whole landscape something of the qualities of a dream. It is true that their voices are slightly different and that their plumage has a deeper red, but that if anything strengthens the impression, like losing one's way in a familiar town - a sense of..." He broke off as a little band of teal came racing across well within range and both men cocked their fowling-pieces.

Eduardo was poised, but seeing Stephen lower his gun he did not fire. 'How absurd,' said Stephen, 'I quite forgot to ask you how you manage without a dog. We could not have brought them down on land, and no man would ever wade far less swim for all love in that cruel bitter cold wetness for anything short of a two-headed phoenix.'

'No,' said Eduardo. 'What we cannot bring down on the shore, we leave where they fall. The lake freezes hard by night and we pick them up in the morning. But it is strange that you should have spoken of a dream - waking dream. I have the same feeling, though not at all for the same clear reason. There is something strange here. The birds are not settled. As you see, they are perpetually moving, the groups breaking up. And there is too much noise. They are uneasy. So is Molina: I have heard him three times now. There is something unnatural. God send there may not be an earthquake.'

'Amen.'

After a long pause Eduardo said, 'I do not believe I shall kill anything this evening, don Esteban... What do you say to sitting here and counting and naming as well as we can until the sun is half an hour from Taraluga over there - I have a quipu in my pocket to record them - and then going back across the Huechopillan to the post-house, where you can write them down at your leisure?'