Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/216

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THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.

exaggerated. In many cases it is the fault of the frozen ones themselves; they have been rendered insensible or careless by stimulants, and gone to sleep in the open air. The tendency to sleep when one is exposed to severe cold should be resisted, as it is very likely to be the sleep of death.
LOST IN A SNOW-STORM.


"There is a story of two travellers who saw a third in trouble; one of them proposed to go to the relief of the man in distress, but the other refused, saying he would not stir out of their sleigh. The first went and relieved the sufferer; his exertions set the blood rushing through his veins and saved him from injury by the cold, while the one who refused to render aid was frozen to death.

"It is a curious fact," said the Doctor, in closing his remarks upon the Russian winter, "that foreigners coming here do not feel the cold at first. They walk the streets in the same clothing they would wear in London or Paris, and laugh at the Russians wrapping themselves in furs. At the same time the Russians laugh at them and predict that if they stay in the country for another season they will change their ways. A stranger does not feel the cold the first winter as sensibly as do the Russians, but in every succeeding season of frost he is fully sensitive to it, and vies with the natives in constant use of his furs."