In mid-winter about four years since, says Miss Martineau, in her Norway and the Norwegians, a young man named Hund, was sent by his master on an errand about twenty miles, to carry provisions to a village in the upper country. The village people asked him for charity, to carry three orphan children on his sledge a few miles on his way to Bergen, and to leave them at a house on the road, when they would be taken care of until they could be brought from Bergen. He took the little things, and saw that the two elder were well wrapped up from the cold. The third he took within his arms and on his knee, as he drove, clasping it warm against his breast—so those say who saw them set off, and it is confirmed by one who met the sledge on the road, and heard the children prattling to Hund, and Hund laughing merrily at their little talk. Before they got half way, however, a pack of hungry wolves, burst out upon them from a hollow in the thicket to the right of the wood. The beasts followed close to the back of the sledge. Closer and closer the wolves pressed. Hund saw one about to spring at his throat. It was impossible for the horse to go faster than he did, for he went like the wind—so did the wolves. Hund in desperation, snatched up one of the children behind him, and threw it over the back of the sledge. This stopped the pack a little. On galloped the horse. But the wolves were soon crowded around again, with the blood freezing to their muzzles. It was easier to throw over the second child than the first—and Hund did it. But on came again the infuriated beasts—gaunt with hunger, and raging like fiends for the prey. It was harder to give up the third—the dumb infant that nestled in his breast, but Hund was in mortal terror. Again the hot breath of the wolves was upon him. He threw a way the infant and saved himself. Away over the snow flew the sledge, the village was reached, and Hund just escaped after all the sacrifice he had made. But he was unsettled and wild, and his talk, for some time whenever he did speak, night or day, was of wolves—so fearful had been the effect upon his imagination.
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ADVENTURES
OF REV. DR. BACON AND HIS PARTY, AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF PERSIA.
Dr. Bacon and Rev. Mr. Marsh, attempted to cross from the city of Mosul, on the Tigris, to Oroomiah, the residence of the Nestorian Christians. On their passage through the Kurdish mountains, they were robbed, and narrowly escaped being murdered, and were finally forced to return to Mosul.
Dr. Bacon, after describing their departure from Diarbekr, says:
“I defer to another time the description of our romantic and picturesque passage down the Tigris. By the care of Providence, our whole party completed this stage, as they had completed the previous and more fatiguing ones, in safety and comfortable health. We arrived in Mosul on the 16th of May, in seven days from Diarbekr, and immediately set about making preparations for continuing our journey into the mountains.