Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 8).djvu/653



HERE is nothing peculiarly malignant in the appearance of a pair of "ski." They are two slips of elm-wood, 8ft. long, 4in. broad, with a square heel, turned-up toes, and straps in the centre to secure your feet. No one to look at them would guess at the possibilities which lurk in them. But you put them on, and you turn with a smile to see whether your friends are looking at you, and then the next moment you are boring your head madly into a snow-bank, and kicking frantically with both feet, and half rising only to butt viciously into that snow-bank again, and your friends are getting more entertainment. than they had ever thought you capable of giving.

This is when you are beginning. You naturally expect trouble then, and you are not likely to be disappointed. But as you get on a little the thing becomes more irritating. The "ski" are the most capricious things upon earth. One day you cannot go wrong with them. On another, with the same weather and the same snow, you cannot go right. And it is when you least expect it that things begin to happen. You stand on the crown of a slope and you adjust your body for a rapid slide, but your "ski" stick motionless, and over you go upon your face. Or you stand upon a plateau which seems to you to be as level as a billiard-table, and in an instant, without cause or warning, away they shoot, and you are left behind staring at the sky. For a man who suffers from too much dignity, a course of Norwegian snow-shoes would have a fine moral effect.

Whenever you brace yourself for a fall it never comes off. Whenever you think yourself absolutely secure it is all over with you. You come to a hard ice slope at an angle of 75deg. and you zig-zag up it, digging the side of your "ski" into it, and feeling that if a mosquito settles upon you you are gone. But nothing ever happens, and you reach the top in safety. Then you stop upon the level to congratulate your companion, and you have just time to say, "What a lovely view is this!" when you find yourself standing on your two shoulder-blades, with your "ski" tied tightly round your neck. Or, again, you may have had a long outing without any misfortune at all, and as you shuffle back along the road, you stop for an instant to tell a group in the hotel veranda how well you are getting on. Something happens and they suddenly find that their congratulations are addressed to the soles of your "ski." Then, if your mouth is not full of snow, you find yourself muttering the names of a few Swiss villages to relieve your feelings. "Ragatz!" is a very handy word, and may save a scandal.

But all this is in the early stage of "ski"-ing. You have to shuffle along the level, to zig-zag or move crab fashion up the hills, to slide down without losing your balance, and, above all, to turn with facility. The first time you try to turn, your friends think it is part of your fun. The great "ski" flapping in the air has the queerest appearance, like an exaggerated nigger dance. But this sudden whish round Vol. viii.—87.