Читать книгу Across the Vatna Jökull; or, Scenes in Iceland. Being a Description of Hitherto Unkown Regions онлайн

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Here we took leave of Paul’s father and his cousin Arni, directing them where to wait for us with the horses, in the north of the island. The evening promised to be showery; but having a lively reminiscence of the black sand of this locality, which at our last year’s encampment upon this spot got into our ears, our eyes, and our food, I determined to advance and camp, as soon as we needed to do so, upon the deep snow, although my men had already begun to put up a temporary abode with loose stones from the terminal moraine of the Jökull.

At this point last year the Jökull was a crevassed glacier, whose surface was covered with aiguilles and hummocks of black sand and ice. But all traces of the glacier were buried beneath a vast accumulation of snow! From the first we were able to use our sleighs, and, turning due northward, we left the habitable world behind us, being face to face with the hardest piece of our summer work. As far as the eye could see was one lifeless, pathless wilderness of snow, destitute alike of animal, insect, or floral life. Our footsteps gave no sound, and our very voices seemed strange in this drear solitude, the death-like stillness of whose snowy wastes is broken only by the howling of the storm, or the outburst of a volcano! It was evident that a much greater snowfall had taken place during the past winter than in the preceding one, and the newly-fallen snow took us up to our knees, making our progress very difficult and slow. After about three hours’ dragging, it began to snow, and a thick fog enveloped us, so I decided to encamp. The plan I usually adopt for sleeping in the snow—and I believe one of the warmest and best methods—is to dig a square hole, three or four feet deep; over this I pitch my tent, banking it well round the sides with snow. I then spread the sleeping bag at the bottom of the hole, with the hoods doubled down over the ends to prevent any snow getting into it. If a storm is blowing, I cast up a bank of snow to windward, and take everything that will be required for immediate use into the tent. The next thing is to draw the sleighs up to the door of the tent; so that if anything extra is required it can be procured without much difficulty, and having stuck up all sticks and shovels firmly in the snow, to prevent their getting covered up and lost, we turn in, changing our wet or snowy clothes sitting upon the waterproof exterior of the bag, and, putting on a dry change, we all get into the bag, having previously fixed up waterproof coats upon the snowy wall at each end, to lean against. If it is not freezing very hard, we hang our snowy clothes upon a line at the top of our tent, with our satchels, &c.; but if it is freezing hard we put them underneath the bed. Snow is then melted, soup or chocolate is made, and rations served, which, with a small allowance of grog, pipes, and a song all round, finish our labours for the day or night, as the case may be, and we go to sleep.