They listened solemnly, and the innkeeper promised to paint out his “drapery” sign. I had four glasses of tea. I purchased two pounds of bread for my journey, and all this cost but fivepence. Still, if he had no more customers that day I supposed his takings would be up to the average. I am sure they had a lively topic of conversation for days to come about a real Englishman who had shown them the way to make the village a “going concern.”
It was interesting to observe the impression made by the announcement that I was an Englishman. Englishmen are rather a myth in these parts. The wonders of London and New York must be taken on trust, without vouchers, like the miracles of the Bible, and I daresay that when one of us does turn up they take him as a sign which is not only sufficient guarantee for the reality of modern civilisation, but also for any points in their religion of which they may have doubt. It is, however, much more likely that they would doubt civilisation than the Bible, and they would accept the authenticity of Elijah’s chariot sooner than that of flying machines.
CHAPTER XIX
“THROUGH SNOW AND ICE”
I TOOK the road to the Krestovy Pass. The clouds lowered, and there was the promise of much snow. It was bitterly cold, and the mountains in front were dressed from head to foot in white robes. Two versts from Kobi an avalanche had fallen recently, so that the road would have been impossible but for an emergency tunnel that had providently been constructed at that point. Fifty men were at work shovelling snow into the river-valley, which was itself piled up in bergs of snow. I wondered what was in store for me at the higher points of the road.
The snow came thick and fast, and the wind blew the tops of the drifts in my face. The snowy mountain sides seemed to faint as the clouds came over them. The river below me was absolutely hidden from view, but it rushed rapidly under the snow. They say the snow never completely melts from this river-bed, even in the hottest seasons.
I fastened my waterproof sleeping-sack about my person, for it was so cold. The road had now on each side of it an eight-foot wall of piled-up and drifted snow, and in this wall little snow caves had been dug out to allow the traveller or workman to take shelter in storms. I was among the elements, high up among the snowy peaks, with snow above and below. To the horizon ran curve after curve of undulating snow. Yet as I stood and listened I heard larks singing. There must be sheltered valleys somewhere.
Five miles from Kobi the road was completely closed to vehicular traffic by an immense heap of avalanche snow, fifty yards across. Over the chaos was a track fairly secure for pedestrians. Now and then one went up to the knee in loose snow. It was a grand pile which an English schoolboy would revel in.
I marvelled at the new world I had so suddenly entered. As the road grew higher all became whiter, till earth and sky were one and there was no dividing line. I felt among the clouds themselves. At Krestovy Pass there was no view to be seen—the hurrying storm closed in everything about my eyes. I looked downward into an abyss of snow and cloud. Then for a moment the storm seemed to be hurrying away from me. The snow ceased to fall on the road where I stood, but in front of me rushed in the gale. I saw the lines of distant precipices, and beyond, the peculiar greyness of the storm. Then the snow returned, and the wind was like to take one’s ears off. The snow rushed past with extraordinary velocity. Often now the road was banked up fifteen feet with snow, so that one was in a sheltered passage. Coming once more into the open, I found the storm had slackened. A beam of the sun shot through, and showed behind the flakes tall, ghostly mountains with seams of awful blackness, where from their steep sides the snow had fallen away.
From the overtopping snow banks on the road hung icicles a yard long, and the walls of the dark emergency tunnels were sheeted with ice. In one of these near Gudaour the ice against the rock wall was fifteen feet high and three to eight feet thick. Huge icicles ten feet long hung from the roof. The tunnel was a fairy grotto. At the foot of the icicles were piles of little ice marbles where the frozen walls had thawed; the fanciful person might call them jewels. The whole was lovely to look at, for the outside surface of the ice was glittering lacework.