ne
near at hand, F---- set to work to manufacture some sledges out of old
packing-cases. Quite close to the house, a hill sloped smoothly for
about 300 yards, at an angle of 40 degrees; along its side lay a
perfectly level and deep drift, which did not show any signs of
thawing for more than a month, and we resolved to use this as a natural
_Montagne Russe_. The construction of a suitable sledge was the first
difficulty to be surmounted, and many were the dismal failures and
break-neck catastrophes which preceded what we considered a safe and
successful vehicle. Not only was it immensely difficult to make, without
either proper materials or tools, a sledge which could hold two people
(for F---- declared it was no fun sleighing alone), but his "patent
brakes" proved the most broken of reeds to lean upon when the sledge was
dashing down the steep incline at the rate of a thousand miles an hour.

We nearly broke our necks more than once, and I look back now with
amazement to our fool-hardiness. How well I remember one expedition,
when F----, who had been hammering away in a shed all the morning, came
to find me sitting in the sun in the verandah, and to inform me that
at last he had perfected a conveyance which would combine speed with
safety. Undaunted by previous mishaps, I sallied forth, and in company
with Mr. U---- and F----, climbed painfully up the high hill I have
mentioned, by some steps which they had cut in the frozen snow. Without
some such help we could not have kept our footing for a moment, and as
long as I live I shall never forget the sensation of leaving my friendly
Alpenstock planted in the snow, and of seating myself on that frail
sledge. Perhaps I ought to describe it here. A board, about six feet
long by one foot broad, with sheet-iron nailed beneath it, and curved
upwards in front; on its upper surface a couple of battens were fixed,
one quite at the foremost end, and one half-way. That was F----'s new
patent sledge, warranted to go faster down an incline than any other
conveyance on the surface of the earth. I was the wretched "passenger,"
as he called me, on more than one occasion, and I will briefly describe
my experiences. "Why did you go?" is a very natural question to arise in
my reader's mind; and sitting here at my writing-table, I feel as if I
must have been a lunatic to venture. But in those delicious wild days,
no enterprise seemed too rash or dangerous to engage in, from mounting
a horse