Читать книгу The Land of the Long Night - Paul B. Du Chaillu - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Snow Land.—A Great Snowstorm.—Fearful Roads.—Snow-ploughs.—Losing the Way.—Intelligence of the Horses.—Upset in the Snow.—Difficulty of Righting Ourselves.—Perspiring at 23 Degrees below Zero.—Houses Buried in Snow.

AFTER I left the town of Gefle the blue sky became obscured by clouds, a few flakes of snow began to fall, then more and more came down, and soon they covered the old snow, that was already of good depth.

I had never before had a post-horse that went so fast, and I wondered why. The horse knew, but I did not: a big snowstorm was coming! He was afraid of being caught in it, and wanted to reach his stable in time. After a while the snow fell so thick that I could see nothing ahead. To make things worse it began to blow hard. Then I dropped the reins and let the horse go as he pleased. As he knew that the snowstorm was coming, so he would know how to get home. Suddenly he gave three or four loud neighs; this announced his arrival. Then he turned to the right and entered a yard. He had reached home!

The next morning it was still snowing; nevertheless I started. On the road were many snow-ploughs at work levelling the snow. These ploughs were of triangular form, made of heavy timber braced with crossbeams. They were generally from eight to ten feet in width at the back, which was the broadest part, and above fifteen feet long. They were drawn by four horses and attended by two men.

The ploughs were followed by heavy rollers of wood to pack the snow.

Erik, my driver, said that every farmer is obliged to furnish horses to clear the road and level it after a snowstorm. The number of horses he furnishes is regulated by the size of his farm. It is very important that the road should be kept in good order, and the rules are strictly enforced.

As we travelled along the road, it was amusing to see horses and dogs roll in the snow; they enjoyed it! The horses that we drove would often take a nip of the snow, and the dogs that followed us did likewise.

One day when I was looking at two horses rolling in the snow near a farmhouse, I suddenly felt a great jerk and we were pitched out headlong! Our horse wanted to have some fun! So he fell on his side and was about to roll over and enjoy himself, taking the sleigh with him; but we did not see the joke. We succeeded in putting him on his legs. The driver gave the animal a good scolding: "Shame on you, shame on you!" he said to him. The horse listened, and seemed to understand him. I think he felt ashamed.

As I journeyed further north the snow got deeper and deeper every hour. Snow-ploughs were now drawn by five horses and generally attended by three men.

The snowstorm still continued. It had now lasted over four days, and with no appearance of holding up. The wind at times blew very hard.

In spite of the snowstorm I continued to travel, and had passed the towns of Söderhamn, Hudicksvall, Sundsvall, and Hernösand, with their streets deep in snow. On the fifth day we had great difficulty in getting along. In some places the ploughs had not passed over the road since two days before, for we were now going through a very sparsely inhabited country. Some parts of the road were honeycombed with holes about fifteen inches deep, made in this way: each horse that had passed stepped in the tracks of the one that had preceded him, and made the holes deeper and deeper, which made walking very difficult for the poor animals.

The further north I went the deeper became the snow, and travelling became tedious. Our sleigh tumbled on one side or the other, upsetting before we could say "Boo!" At each effort the poor horse made to extricate himself, we had either to get out of the sleigh or be thrown out. The poor brute would often sink to his neck, and sometimes almost to his head when he got out of the snow-plough's track! In order to make some headway and to make up for the slowness of the horses and bad roads, I travelled sixteen and eighteen hours a day, and when I came to a post station I was pretty tired.

The ploughs I now met were drawn by six horses and attended by four or five men. The struggles of the poor animals as they sank continually in the deep soft snow and tried to extricate themselves, were sometimes painful to behold.

We always had to be careful to drive in the middle of the road, where the snow had been cleared and packed by the snow-ploughs and the rollers. Sometimes we could not tell where it was, for the land around was deeply buried and the track of the snow-ploughs was hidden by the fresh-fallen snow.

When my driver made a mistake and drove one way or the other outside of the track, the first intimation we had was that of the horse sinking suddenly, being ourselves upset or nearly so. Then we had a lot of trouble putting him on the track again.

After several of these mishaps, the driver would say to me: "Now I am going to let the horse go by himself. He is accustomed every year to go in deep snow on this road and he will know the way." "You are right," I would reply.

When let alone the horse would walk very slowly, and he would hesitate each time he put either his right or his left foot on the snow, to make sure he was on the right track. If he thought he was on the left of the road, it was his left foot that came down first; if he thought he was to the right of the road, he put his right foot down, but not until he had made sure that he was right. If he saw that he had made a mistake, he turned quickly to one side or the other.

One day the horse suddenly dropped one leg in the soft snow, on the right side of the track; this unbalanced him and—bang! he fell on his side, taking the sleigh with him. We were pitched out, and as we got up on our legs we found ourselves in snow up to our necks. Only after frantic efforts did the horse succeed in regaining his footing.

As I looked around and saw our situation, and that our three heads were just above the snow, with the horse's head looking at us, his eyes seeming to say, "Are you not going to help me out of this?" I gave a great shout of laughter, for the sight was so funny that I forgot being pitched out—and I said to the driver, "Don't we look funny, the horse included, with only our heads and shoulders above the snow!"

What a job we had to extricate ourselves, put the poor horse on the track again, and afterwards right the sleigh. Then we found that the harness was broken in several places, and we had to mend it the best way we could with numb fingers. I had stopped laughing, for there was no fun in that.

"At this rate of travelling," I said to the driver, "it will take a whole day to go three or four miles. I do not know whether our poor horse will be able to stand it. Look at him! He looks as if he were a smoke-stack, so much steam is rising from his body. He may become so exhausted that he will not be able to go further, and we shall have to abandon the sleigh."

"It is so," coolly replied Lars the driver, and he remained silent afterwards.

I felt sorry for the poor horse, and reproached myself for not having tarried at the last post station.

Then I said to Lars, "If the horse gives out, we will try to build a snow house for us three. You have some hay, and he will not starve. As for ourselves, we will try to reach some farm and get some food and some oats for our poor dear horse. I am very sorry we have no skees with us."

There was so much snow over the land that I thought I had come to "Snow Land." It was over twelve feet in depth; it had been snowing for six consecutive days and nights, and it was snowing yet. I was now between the sixty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of north latitude, and I had to travel on the road nearly two hundred miles more before I came to the southern part of "The Land of the Long Night." The little town of Umeå for which I was bound was still far away. I said to myself, "I have to cross this 'Snow Land' before I reach 'The Land of the Long Night.' What hard work it will be!"

A little further on we came to the post station—and how glad I was to spend the night there—to get into a feather bed. The following day the snow-ploughs and the rollers were busy, and the centre of the highway was made passable for some miles further north. So bidding good-bye to the station master and to my driver of the day before, I started with a fine young horse and a strong young fellow for a driver.

As I looked around, I could see snow, snow, deep snow everywhere. The fences, the stone walls of the scattered farms, and the huge boulders with which that part of the country is covered were buried out of sight; only the tops of the birches and of the fir and pine trees could be seen. I had not met such deep snow before! I had never encountered such a continuous snowstorm! "Surely," I said to myself again, as I looked over the country, "this is 'Snow Land.'" I wondered how long it would take to cross it. The snow was nearly fourteen feet deep on a level.

I next came to a part of the country where thousands of branches of pine and fir trees had been planted in two rows to show the line of the road. I could not tell now when I was travelling over a river, a lake, on land, or over the frozen Gulf of Bothnia!

As we were passing over one of the barren districts, a swamp in summer, full of stones and boulders, without a house in sight, I said to my driver: "When are we coming to the next farm?"

"At the rate we are going," he replied, "it will take us two hours at least."

"Then let us stop and give a little of the hay you have brought with you to the horse. After he has rested a while, we will start again."

After the horse had eaten his hay, we started. We had not gone long, however, before we were upset. The horse had not kept to the road. We had a hard time to right the sleigh and bring the horse back to firm snow. It was such hard work that the perspiration was dripping from our faces, though it was 23 degrees below zero.

"I have had enough of this travelling," I said to the driver; "the snow is too deep and soft to go on. The snow-ploughs have not done much good here. They evidently could not go far."

"I do not believe," he replied, "that horses will be given to you at the next post station, even if we should reach there to-day. But I am sure we cannot do it, and we shall have to stop at the first farm we meet and ask the farmer for shelter until people can travel on the road again."

Two hours afterwards I saw in the distance a little hamlet, or a number of farms close together. What a sight! Many of the small houses were buried in the snow, and only their roofs or chimneys could be seen. From some of the chimneys smoke was curling upwards. I was delighted.

Every one was busy digging and making trenches, so that the light and air might reach the windows, or that communication could be had between the buildings, especially those where the animals were housed. In some cases the exit had first to be made through the chimney.

It was a very strange sight indeed! and I said to myself, "Surely I am in 'Snow Land.'"