144 



SLEDGE-TRAVELLING. 



links of iron, or small bells, are hang-ing to it, the jingling- of which, is supposed 

 to encourage the dogs. They seldom carry more than one person at a time, who 

 sits aside with his feet on the sledge, having his baggage and provisions behind 

 him. The reins being fastened to the collar instead of the head, have no command 

 over the dogs, and are therefore usually hung upon the sledge, the driver princi- 

 pally depending on their obedience to his voice. He has, however, a crooked stick, 

 to which the dogs have been trained to pay attention, and by striking it in the 

 snow, he can regulate their speed, or even stop them at pleasure. He chastises 

 them, by throwing this stick at them ; and dexterity, in the recovery of this 

 stick, when thrown, is the most difficult manoeuvre of the sledge driver : should it 

 be lost, the dogs, it is said, could scarcely be restrained from running away 

 with the carriage, to the risk of dashing it to pieces, and exhausting and ruining 

 themselves. 



Three persons with their baggages have been carried over the ice, in one of those 

 sledges, drawn by five dogs, sixty English miles in the day. In the Russian 

 dominions, a good dog trained to go before, is worth forty roubles, or ten pounds 

 sterling 1 . Both the Greenlanders and Kamtschatkans treat these most useful 

 animals, with equal inhumanity, as their brethren of St. Johns, Newfound/and. 



