134 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



filling the hollow lanes/ White had occasion to be much 

 abroad. He thought he had never before or since encoun- 

 tered such rugged Siberian weather. * Many of the narrow 

 roads were now filled above the tops of the hedges, through 

 which the snow was driven into most romantic and grotesque 

 shapes, so striking to the imagination as not to be seen with- 

 out wonder and pleasure. The poultry dared not to stir out 

 of their roosting places : for cocks and hens are so dazzled 

 and confounded by the glare of snow, that they would soon 

 perish without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly in 

 their seats, and would not move till compelled by hunger : 

 being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts and heaps 

 treacherously betray their footsteps and prove fatal to many 

 of them.' From the i4th the snow continued to increase, and 

 began to stop the road-wagons and coaches, which could no 

 longer keep their regular stages; and especially on the 

 Western roads. 'The company at Bath that wanted to 

 attend the Queen's birthday were strangely incommoded ; 

 many carriages of persons who got on their way to town 

 from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrass- 

 ments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, 

 and offered large rewards to labourers, if they would shovel 

 them a road to London ; but the relentless heaps of snow 

 were too bulky to be removed ; and so the i8th passed over, 

 leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances, 

 at the Castle and other inns.' 



Yet all this time and till the 2 ist the cold was not so intense 

 as it was in December 1878. On the 2ist the thermometer 

 showed 20 degrees, and had it not been for the deep snows, 

 the winter would not have been very severely felt. On the 

 22nd, the author had occasion to go to London * through a 

 sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. 1 

 But London exhibited an even stranger appearance than the 

 country. ' Being bedded deep in snow, the pavement of the 

 streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, 

 so that the carriages ran almost without the least noise.' 

 'Such an exemption from din and clatter,' says White, 'was 



