A Night in the Snow | Page 7

no signs of life whatever.
Never did shipwrecked mariner watch for the morning more anxiously
than did I through that weary, endless night, for I knew that a glimpse
of the distance in any one direction would enable me to steer my course
homewards. Day dawned at last, but hope and patience were to be yet
further tried, for a dense fog clung to the face of the hill, obscuring
everything but the objects close at hand. Furthermore, I discovered that
I was rapidly becoming snow blind. My eyes, which had been
considerably injured already by the sharp sleet of the evening before,
were further affected by the glare of the snow, and I was fast losing all
distinctness of vision. I first learned the extent of this new calamity
when endeavouring, with the earliest light, to look at my watch. It was
a work of great difficulty to get it out of my pocket; and when this was
done, I found that I could not tell the face from the back. The whole
thing was hazy and indistinct, and I can only describe it as looking like
an orange seen through a mist. Such sight as remained rapidly became
all confusion as regarded the form, colour, and proportion of objects.
Again and again I thought I saw before me trees and enclosures, but
these, when I came up to them, invariably turned out to be only
portions of gorse bushes projecting through the snow. My optical
delusions as to colour were perhaps the most remarkable; the
protruding rocks invariably appeared of a strange orange yellow, with
black lines along them, producing a short of tortoise-shell effect. I took
these mysterious appearances at first for dead animals, ponies or sheep,
and touched them to try to ascertain the fact. My hands, however, were
so utterly devoid of sensation, that they were of no more use than my
eyes in identifying objects. I was therefore quite in the dark as to their
nature, till experience proved them to be rocks with tufts of heather on
them. Owing to my failing eyesight, my falls became very frequent,
and several of them were from heights so great that it would scarcely be
believed were I to attempt to describe them. I may, however, say, that
they were such as perfectly to appal those who, a few days afterwards,
visited the spots where they occurred, and saw the deep impressions in
the snow where I had plunged into it from the rocks above. One fall

especially I well remember. I had just crossed the ridge of a hill, and
saw, as I imagined, close below me a pool covered with ice, which
seemed free from snow. I thought I would walk across this, and,
accordingly, made a slight jump from the rock on which I stood in
order to reach it. In a moment, however, I discovered that, instead of on
to a pool, I had jumped into empty space. I must have fallen on this
occasion a considerable distance, but I was caught in a deep snow-drift,
so that, although considerably shaken and bewildered for the moment
by what had happened, I was not seriously hurt.
I have been enabled by various circumstances, and by the help of those
who followed my tracks before the snow melted, to make out with
tolerable accuracy the course of my wanderings. Those who tracked me
say that, "If there was one part of the hill more difficult and dangerous
than another, that is the line which Mr. Carr took." When the morning
light first dawned, I could see that I was walking along the side of a
ravine of great depth, and more than usually perpendicular sides; it was
so steep that I could not climb to the top of the ridge and get out of it,
and the snow was in such a very loose, soft state, that I expected every
moment it would give way beneath me, and I should be precipitated
into the depths below. I had to walk with the greatest care to prevent
this; and I believe that this was a very good thing for me, as it gave my
mind complete occupation, and kept me from flagging. I could only go
straight on, as I could not ascend, and was afraid to descend. My
method of progression was more crawling than walking, as I had to
drive my hands deep into the snow, and clutch at tufts of grass or
heather, or any thing I could find beneath it, to hold on by. I must have
gone forward in this way for an hour or two, when I found the ravine
becoming less steep, and I heard the sound of running water very
distinctly. Accordingly I thought I would descend and