Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 19.3.4

19.3.4

While traversing this same mountain of Pire-penjale, where the elephants tumbled down, three things recalled my old philosophical speculations. The first was that we experienced the opposite seasons of summer and winter within the same hour. In ascending we were exposed to the intense heat of the sun, and perspired most profusely; but when we reached the summit, we found ourselves in the midst of frozen snow, through which a passage for the army had been recently cut; a small and congealed rain was falling, and the wind blew piercingly cold. The poor Indians, most of whom had never felt the severity of winter, and saw for the first time ice and snow, were in a state of great suffering and astonishment and fled with precipitation. The second circumstance was, that within two hundred paces the wind blew from two opposite quarters. While climbing toward the summit it blew in my face, that is, from the north; but I no sooner began to descend on the other side than it blew on my back, that is, from the south; as if the vapours escaping from all sides, and rising to the summit of the mountain, had there condensed, and caused the wind; which, equally attracted by the warm exhausted air below, descended into the two opposite valleys.