A few steer with a pair of
pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the feet. If the
weight be heavy and the track smooth, the toboggan takes the bit
between its teeth; and to steer a couple of full-sized friends in
safety requires not only judgment but desperate exertion. On a very
steep track, with a keen evening frost, you may have moments almost
too appalling to be called enjoyment; the head goes, the world
vanishes; your blind steed bounds below your weight; you reach the
foot, with all the breath knocked out of your body, jarred and
bewildered as though you had just been subjected to a railway
accident. Another element of joyful horror is added by the formation
of a train; one toboggan being tied to another, perhaps to the number
of half a dozen, only the first rider being allowed to steer, and all
the rest pledged to put up their feet and follow their leader, with
heart in mouth, down the mad descent. This, particularly if the
track begins with a headlong plunge, is one of the most exhilarating
follies in the world, and the tobogganing invalid is early reconciled
to somersaults.
There is all manner of variety in the nature of the tracks, some
miles in length, others but a few yards, and yet like some short
rivers, furious in their brevity.
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