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Mountainous countries are not passed but with difficulty, not merely from the labour of climbing; for to climb is not always necessary: but because, that which is not mountain is commonly bog, through which the way must be picked with caution. Where there are hills, there is much rain, and the torrents, pouring down into the intermediate spaces, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not to stagnate, till they have broken the texture of the ground.
Of the hills, which our journey offered to the view on either side, we did not take the height, nor did we see any that astonished us with their loftiness. Towards the summit of one, there was a white spot, which I should have called a naked rock, but the guides, who had better eyes, and were acquainted with the phænomena of the country, declared it to be snow. It had already lasted to the end of August, and was likely to maintain its contest with the sun, till it should be reinforced by winter.
The height of mountains, philosophically considered, is properly computed from the surface of the next sea; but, as it affects the eye or imagination of the passenger, as it makes either a spectacle or an obstruction, it must be reckoned from the place where the rise begins to make a considerable angle with the plain. In extensive continents the land may, by gradual elevation, attain great height, without any other appearance than that of a plain gently inclined, and if a hill, placed upon such raised ground, be described, as having its altitude equal to the whole space above the sea, the representation will be fallacious.
These mountains may be properly enough measured from the inland base; for it is not much above the sea. As we advanced at evening towards the western coast, I did not observe the declivity to be greater than is necessary for the discharge of the inland waters.
