My guide soon set about making a fire; and while dinner was being cooked, I bethought me I would have a bath.  I took a header from a projecting rock, but I very soon made the best of my way out of the water again.  It was icy cold; I hardly ever recollect feeling any water so cold—­I suppose because the lake is so much in shadow.  After the meal we pushed on to Buedos, another two hours of riding; this time through a forest so dense that we could scarcely make our way.  At last we reached a path, and this brought us before long to a roughly-constructed log-hut.  This, I was told, was the “summer hotel.”  Further on there were a few more log-huts, the “dependence” of the hotel itself.  The bathing season was over, so hosts and guests had alike departed.  This must be “roughing it” with a vengeance, I should say; but my guide told me that very “high-born” people came here to be cured.

It is a favourite place, too, for some who desire the last cure of all for life’s ills; a single breath of the gaseous exhalations is death.  One cleft in the hill is called the “Murderer;” so fatal are the fumes that even birds flying over it are often known to drop dead!  The elevation of Mount Buedos is only 3800 feet; there are several caves immediately below the highest point.  The principal cave is ten feet high and forty feet long, the interior being lower than the opening.  A mixture of gases is exhaled, which, being heavier than the atmosphere, fills it up to the level of the entrance; and when the sun is shining into the cave, one can see the gaseous fumes swaying to and fro, owing to the difference of refraction.

I experienced a sensation which has often been noticed here before.  On entering the cave, and standing for some minutes immersed in the gas, but with my head above it, I had the feeling of warmth pervading the lower limbs.  I might have believed myself to be in a warm bath up to the chest.  This is a delusion, however, for the gaseous exhalation is pronounced by experimenters to be cooler, if anything, than the air; I suppose they mean the air of an ordinary summer day.  The walls of the cave arc covered with a deposit of sulphur, and at the extreme end drops of liquid are continually falling.  This moisture is esteemed very highly for disease of the eyes; it is collected by the peasants.  The gas-baths are resorted to by persons suffering from gout or rheumatism.  They are taken in this manner:  The patient wears a loose dress over nothing else, and arriving at the mouth of the cave, he must take one long breath.  Instantly he runs into the dread cavern, remaining only as long as he can hold his breath; he then rushes back again.  One single inhalation, and he would be as dead as a door-nail!  How the halt and lame folk manage I don’t know, but my guide was eloquent about the wonderful cures that are made here every year.

There are a variety of mineral springs in different parts of the mountain.  At the source some have the appearance of boiling, from the quantity of carbonic acid gas given off; but it is only in appearance, for the water is very cold.