I've continued pretty cheerful about the weather anyway, but for anyone who might feel depressed about the cold, I thought I'd give a bit of 'it could be worse' encouragement. These are extracts from Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China During the years 1844-5-6. Volume 2 [of 2], by Evariste Regis Huc,, a French Missionary, translated by W. Hazlitt. (If you're interested in older books and don't know the Gutenberg Project, it's an essential site to visit. A digitised copy of the original book is available at American Libraries, which links to Google, etc.
We perceived a traveller sitting on a great stone, his head bent forward on his chest, his arms pressed against his sides, and his whole frame motionless as a statue. We called to him several times, but he made no reply, and did not even indicate, by the slightest movement, that he heard us. “How absurd,” said we to each other, “for a man to loiter in this way in such dreadful weather. The wretched fellow will assuredly die of cold.” We called to him once more, but he remained silent and motionless as before. We dismounted, went up to him, and recognised in him a young Mongol Lama, who had often paid us a visit in our tent. His face was exactly like wax, and his eyes, half-opened, had a glassy appearance; icicles hung from his nostrils and from the corners of his mouth. We spoke to him, but obtained no answer; and for a moment we thought him dead. Presently, however, he opened his eyes, and fixed them upon us with a horrible expression of stupefaction: the poor creature was frozen, and we comprehended at once that he had been abandoned by his companions.
It seemed to us so frightful to leave a man to die, without making an effort to save him, that we did not hesitate to take him with us. We took him from the stone on which he had been placed, enveloped him in a wrapper, seated him upon Samdadchiemba’s little mule, and thus brought him to the encampment. When we had set up our tent, we went to visit the companions of this poor young man. Upon our informing them what we had done, they prostrated themselves in token of thanks, and said that we were people of excellent hearts, but that we had given ourselves much labour in vain, for that the case was beyond cure. “He is frozen,” said they, “and nothing can prevent the cold from getting to his heart.” We ourselves did not participate in this despairing view of the case, and we returned to our tent, accompanied by one of the patient’s companions, to see what further could be done. When we reached our temporary home, the young Lama was dead.
The narrative describes much of the suffering of Joseph Gabet, Huc's companion, but there was some respite:
The north wind greatly aggravated M. Gabet’s malady. From day to day his condition grew more alarming. His extreme weakness would not permit him to walk, and being thus precluded from warming himself by means of a little exercise, his feet, hands, and face were completely frozen; his lips became livid, and his eyes almost extinct; by-and-by he was not able to support himself on horseback. Our only remedy was to wrap him in blankets, to pack him upon a camel, and to leave the rest to the merciful goodness of Divine Providence. ...
We were beginning to ascend the vast chain of the Tant-La mountains; on the plateau of which, our travelling companions assured us, the invalids would die, and those who were now well would become invalids, with but a small chance of living. The death of M. Gabet was considered quite a matter of certainty. ...
During the twelve days that we were journeying along the heights of Tant-La, we enjoyed fine weather; the air was calm, and it pleased God to bless us each day with a warm, genial sunshine, that materially modified the ordinary coldness of the atmosphere. Still the air, excessively rarefied at that enormous altitude, was very piercing, and monstrous eagles, which followed the track of the caravan, were daily provided with a number of dead bodies. The small caravan of the French mission itself paid its tribute to death; but, happily, that tribute was only in the shape of our little black mule, which we abandoned at once with regret and with resignation. The dismal prophecy that had been announced with reference to M. Gabet was falsified. The mountains, which were to have been fatal to him, proved, on the contrary, highly favourable, restoring to him, by degrees, health and strength.
Hazlitt's translation dates from 1852. The early Victorian language is sufficiently different to modern English to gives it a charming, historic effect. Compare the last two sentences with the 1982, modern English translation by Charles de Salis: The gloomy predictions made about Father Gabet proved to be quite wrong. Quite the contrary, this plateau did him a great deal of good. His health and normal strength gradually returned. I read this version first, with its plain English and simple sentence structure, and found nothing wrong with it. I wonder what I would have felt if it had been the other way round.
Gabet survived the journey, although his last mention by name is: M. Gabet ... not having sufficient strength to grasp the tail of his horse, he fell from exhaustion, and became almost buried in the snow. ... He arrived more dead than alive; his face was of a livid paleness, and his heaving breast sent forth a sound like the death-rattle.
I think about 200 people have died of cold in Poland so far this year, wihch is not an unusual number. This 11 March 2006 report, possibly with figures from January that year, comes from the World Socialist Web Site:
At last count more than 240 people have frozen to death since October 2005. The past several months have witnessed Poland’s coldest winter in twenty years. The winter of 2005-2006 has recorded temperatures as low as -35 degrees Celsius ...
Just over the weekend of January 21, 2006, for example, 27 people died, bringing the total at that time to an amount that far surpassed previous years. In the entire winter of 2004, for instance, 180 people perished. “This [amount of 2005-2006 winter deaths] is an exceptionally high number,” police spokeswoman Grazyna Puchalska told the Associated Foreign Press. “And the winter is not over yet.”
Why not read the whole article? It has comments such as "previously Stalinist Poland had an extensive system of social welfare funded from the national budget, with both health care and social security benefits being both free and comprehensive".
I've never been out in temperatures lower than -26°, but, then the -35° may have been in Suwałki. Anyway, you'd have to be mad to go out in the snow and freezing cold ... to beat your carpet on 29 December - 2005 view from the kitchen in our Jelonki flat in Warsaw. I've no idea who it was.
4 comments:
Laying the carpet on the snow and beating it is a good way of cleaning it - my parents and I did it many times, it has to be more than few degree below 0, so the carpet won't be wet after that.
Yes but it's freezing. No carpet is worth that!
If it hadn't been snowing heavily and the snow had been hard, I'd understand the principle - not that I would do it myself. I have two following photos of the event. The first shows him picking up the rug, now heavily laden with snow, and the second has him putting it on the metal, rug-beating frame. It must have been impregnated with snow by the time he got indoors, ready for the snow to melt.
The reason why he put it on the metal frame was to remove the snow from the carpet. I used to do it as a kid. In the 70s that was the cheapest and easiest way of cleaning your carpet. It came back slightly wet, but refreshed. It was dry within a couple of hours. I'm surprised people still do it nowadays, but I guess old habits die hard...
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