228 A SLEDGE JOURNEY. 



The road, or rather the path, which our horses trod, ran 

 along the side of a steep mountain, and descended in zig- 

 zags to the bank of the St. Anne river. 



On our right rose a precipitous rock, crowned by a 

 forest of firs : their branches glittered with crystals of ice, 

 which clanked like lustres against one another, and pro- 

 duced a most fantastic effect. On the left yawned beneath 

 our feet a gulf, a deep crevasse, bristling with trees and 

 paved with ice, whose depth the eye could not fathom. 

 Suddenly, at the most dangerous point of this dangerous 

 passage, the horse harnessed to the carriage slipped be- 

 tween the shafts ; while the other Bucephalus, alarmed at 

 this unforeseen fall, made a violent start, and disappeared 

 in the shadows of the crevasse, or, rather, in the midst 

 of the branches of an enormous cedar, placed most oppor- 

 tunely on the brink of the abyss to arrest his headlong 

 descent. 



Our sledge, our driver, and ourselves, enveloped as we 

 were in thick furs, resembled the famous statue of the 

 Laocooii ; the serpents being represented by the traces, 

 guiding reins, and other portions of the harness, in which 

 we were entangled as in a net. On the other side, the 

 horse suspended above the chasm kicked, and struggled, 

 and shattered the sledge. We were in great alarm lest, 

 as soon as the support on which he rested gave way, he 

 should bring on a catastrophe. I must confess that neither 

 the captain nor myself now felt inclined to laugh, and we 

 hastened to think of some means of extricating ourselves 

 from so imminent a danger. 



The first thing to be done was to get clear of the sledge ; 

 a task we accomplished without much difficulty. Next 

 we endeavoured to rescue the animal which was hanging 



