The
toboggan is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is a
hurlie upon runners; and if for a grating road you substitute a
long declivity of beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy career of
the tobogganist. The correct position is to sit; but the fantastic
will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the descent upon their
belly or their back. 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.
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