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SPORTS ON THE ICE.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

"All shod with steel,

We hiss'd along the polish'd ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase

And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,

The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare."-WORDSWORTII.

ALTHOUGH the ancients were remarkable for their dexterity in most of the athletic sports, skating seems to have been unknown to them. The earliest notice of it in England may be found in an ancient description of London. Its historian relates: "When the great fenne or moore (which watereth the walles of the citie on the north side) is frozen, many young people play upon the yce; some stryding as wide as they may; some doe slide swiftly; some tye bones to their feete, and under their heeles, and shoving themselves by a little picked staffe, doe slide as swiftly as a birde flyeth in the air, or an arrow out of a crosse-bow." Here, then, although the implements were rude, we

have skaters.

There can be but little doubt that skating and the wooden skate of the present day, shod with iron, derive their origin from Holland; where it is practised, not only as a graceful and elegant amusement, but as an expeditious mode of travelling when the lakes and canals are frozen up. Even in our country in Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire-pleasure and business are transferred from "the road" to the ice. The following feats are upon record :— A mile has been accomplished in a minute and four seconds, and two miles in five minutes and two seconds; and the journey from Ely to Cambridge and back on the ice, forty miles in all, has been done in two hours and thirty-six minutes.

There are many of my readers who will remember the great frost of 1814, which commenced in December 1813, and, on February, the Thames, from London Bridge to Blackfriars, became a thoroughly solid surface of ice. Notices were placed at the ends of all the streets leading to the city side of the river, announcing a safe footway over; and in a short time, thousands were attracted to cross and recross it on the ice, and to pay a visit to Frost fair. An entire street of booths, contiguous to each other, was built, inhabited by bakers, barbers, butchers, cooks, suttlers, &c. This was called Freezeland Street. Swings, bookstalls, suttling booths, skittle-grounds, toy-shops, and almost every appendage of a fair on land, appeared on the frozen Thames. There were professors of E. O., rouge et noir, the wheel -of-fortune, and pricking-the-garter; pedlars, hawkers of ballads, fruit, oysters, perambulating piemen; and purveyors of the favourite luxuries, gin, beer, brandy-balls, and gingerbread. There were smoking fires for roasting,

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boiling, frying-preparing food for the hungry, and liquor for the thirsty. In short, all was eating, drinking, and rejoicing. A dozen printing-presses were erected on the " 'grand mall," which extended from bridge to bridge, and the frosty typographers issued many an-ice article!

At Vienna, during the winter of 1814-15, the years of the Congress, there was sufficient frost and snow for sledging. From the middle of December to the middle of February, the streets were crowded with sledges-even the hackney coaches were taken from their wheels. La créme of the society, including emperors, empresses, kings, queens, princes, princesses, arch-dukes, arch-duchesses, &c., occasionally formed sledging parties, to dine in the country, and return by torch-light. Nothing could exceed the splendour of these vehicles, which were generally built like light cars. Occasionally, they were made in the forms of tigers, shells, swans, ornamented with gold and silver, and lined with velvet and the richest fur. Each sledge was drawn by two horses, splendidly caparisoned with "cloth of gold," plumes of feathers upon their heads, their manes adorned with ribands, and a mass of silver bells hanging across their shoulders. Bands of military music accompanied these processions, and the noble Hungarian guard escorted the royal parties.

Winter, in Canada, is the season of general amusement; and when the clear frosty weather sets in, every one devotes himself to pleasure, and sledging and skating become the order of the day. Nothing can be more expeditious than travelling on sledges; and the distances horses can go in them is almost incredible, so light is the draft, and so favourable is the snow to their feet.

In Holland, the land of dykes and canals, skating is one of the principal diversions. It is astonishing to see the crowds in a hard frost upon the ice, and their great dexterity: both men and women dart along with inconceivable velocity; they carry their goods to market upon skaits, and will travel twenty or thirty miles in that manner before breakfast.

But for feats on the ice, Russia must "bear off the bell." Nothing strikes a stranger more than the facility with which the Russians perform the longest and most uncomfortable journeys. They travel in sledges, made of the bark of the linden tree, lined with thick felt; and will sometimes perform a journey of four hundred miles in three days and nights.

Ice-hills afford a perpetual fund of amusement to the populace during the Russian carnival. They are constructed in the following manner: -A scaffolding is raised upon the frozen river, about thirty feet high, with a landing-place at top; the ascent to which is by a ladder. From the summit, a sloping plane of boards, about four yards broad and thirty long, descends to the surface of the river. Upon these boards are laid square masses of ice, about four inches thick; which being first smoothed with the axe, and packed close to each other, are then sprinkled with water, by which means they adhere to the board and to one another, and form an inclined plane of pure ice. From the bottom of this plane, the snow is cleared away for the length of two hundred yards, and the breadth of four, upon the level bed of the river, and the sides of this course, as well as the sides and top

of the scaffolding, are ornamented with firs and pines. Each person being provided with a sledge, something like a butcher's tray, mounts the ladder, and, having attained the summit, seats himself on his sledge at the upper extremity of the inclined plane, down which he suffers it to glide with inconceivable rapidity, the velocity acquired in the descent carrying it along the cleared way on the level ice of the river. At the end of the course there is usually another ice-hill similar to the former, which begins where the other ends; so that the person immediately mounts again, and in the same manner glides down the other plane of ice. The great difficulty consists in steering and poising the sledge as it is hurried down the inclined plane. Boys also amuse themselves in skating down these hills: they glide chiefly upon one skate, being better able to preserve a balance upon one leg than upon two.

In Kamtschatka, where horses are very scarce, dogs supply their places. Every inhabitant possesses at least "a stud" of six, which they use when they travel. These dogs are harnessed to a sledge "four in hand," with a single one before as a leader. The form of the sledge is that of an oblong basket, the two extremities of which are elevated in a curve; it is about three feet in length and one in breadth. The basket, which composes the body of the sledge, is of very thin wood, the sides of open work, and ornamented with straps of different colours; the seat of the "coachman" is covered with bearskin, and raised about three feet from the ground, upon four legs, which are fastened to two parallel planks three or four inches broad, which serve as supports and skates. The harness is made of leather, it passes upon the breasts of the "steeds," and is joined to the sledge by traces; the dogs are fastened together by couples passing through their collars of bearskin. The "dragsman" has no whip, but uses a curved stick, on which are suspended iron rings, for the purpose of encouraging the dogs by the jingling noise these kind of bells make.

The Rev. J. Goldsmith makes the following interesting allusion to sledging in his Journey through Kamtschatka :

"We solicited some reindeer to carry us up the country. Taking down a horn that hung up in his cottage, our host blew it, on which fourteen or fifteen of those animals came running towards the hut; six of which which were immediately yoked to as many sledges. In one of these vehicles we put our merchandise and provisions; another was assigned for our guides and interpreters. We then put on some Lapland dresses, and each of us, lying down in his sledge, was covered with a bear's skin. At the back of the sledge were two leathern girths, into which we thrust our arms to keep ourselves steady, and each was furnished with a stick to support the sledge in case it should be in danger of overturning. No sooner were we prepared than our deer set off with amazing swiftness, and continued their pace over hills and dales, without keeping any beaten track, till seven in the evening, when we entered a village, at which we took up our quarters."

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