The Land of the Long Night | Page 8

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