Our route lay along the river due northward, right in the teeth of a strong north wind.

A wintry north wind is always and everywhere a disagreeable enemy to face; let the reader try to imagine what it is when the Fahrenheit thermometer is at 30 degrees below zero--or rather let him refrain from such an attempt, for the sensation produced cannot be imagined by those who have not experienced it.

Of course I ought to have turned back--at least, as soon as a sensation of faintness warned me that the circulation was being seriously impeded--but I did not wish to confess my imprudence to the friend who accompanied me.

When we had driven about three-fourths of the way we met a peasant-woman, who gesticulated violently, and shouted something to us as we passed.

I did not hear what she said, but my friend turned to me and said in an alarming tone--we had been speaking German--"Mein Gott! Ihre Nase ist abgefroren!" Now the word "abgefroren," as the reader will understand, seemed to indicate that my nose was frozen off, so I put up my hand in some alarm to discover whether I had inadvertently lost the whole or part of the member referred to.