It was near the setting of the sun, on a clear, cold day in December,
when a sleigh was moving slowly up one of the mountains in the
district we have described. The day had been fine for the season, and
but two or three large clouds, whose color seemed brightened by the
light reflected from the mass of snow that covered the earth, floated
in a sky of the purest blue. The road wound along the brow of a
precipice, and on one side was upheld by a foundation of logs piled
one upon the other, while a narrow excavation in the mountain in the
opposite direction had made a passage of sufficient width for the
ordinary travelling of that day. But logs, excavation, and every
thing that did not reach several feet above the earth lay alike buried
beneath the snow. A single track, barely wide enough to receive the
sleigh, * denoted the route of the highway, and this was sunk nearly
two feet below the surrounding surface.

* Sleigh is the word used in every part of the United States to denote
a traineau. It is of local use in the west of England, whence it is
most probably derived by the Americans. The latter draw a distinction
between a sled, or sledge, and a sleigh, the sleigh being shod with
metal. Sleighs are also subdivided into two - horse and one-horse
sleighs. Of the latter, there are the cutter, with thills so arranged
as to permit the horse to travel in the side track; the “pung,” or
“tow-pung” which is driven with a pole; and the “gumper,” a rude
construction used for temporary purposes in the new countries. Many
of the American sleighs are elegant though the use of this mode of
conveyance is much lessened with the melioration of the climate
consequent to the clearing of the forests.

In the vale, which lay at a distance of several hundred feet lower,
there was what, in the language of the country, was called a clearing,