As I mentioned before, even this drift had thawed till it was soft at the surface and worn away almost to the rocks.

During a rapid descent the nose of the sledge dipped through the snow, and stopped dead against a rock.

Mr.
U---- was instantly buried in the snow, falling into a young but prickly Spaniard, which assaulted him grievously; but F---- shot over his head some ten yards, turned a somersault, and alit on his feet.

This sounds a harmless performance enough, but it requires practice; and F---- declared that for weeks afterwards his neck felt twisted.

The accident must have looked very ridiculous: the sledge one moment gliding smoothly along at the rate of forty miles an hour,--the next a dead stop, and F----flying through the air over his passenger's head, finishing feet first plump down in the soft snow.
Looking back on that time, I can remember how curiously soon the external traces of the great snow-storm disappeared.