Lördag med Gutenberg

Fullmåne, stjärnor, snötyngnda träd — det var som att promenera i ett japanskt träsnitt. Ett kallt sådant, - -22,5°, det var inte en frivillig promenad. Tyvärr hade jag ingen möjlighet att gå medan det var ljust, annars hade det nog varit lite skönare.

Eld tarvar...... den in kommit,
..... kåsen och kall om knäna;
mat och mantel..... den man tarvar
....... som över fjället farit

Åke Ohlmarks översättning av en av Hávamáls verser

Det var gott att komma in till elden — maten och manteln får vänta till senare. Jag plockade istället ut ett par av mina Gutenbergsfynd ur den virtuella bokhyllan.

"Wunderbare Reise des kleinen Nils Holgersson mit den Wildgänsen" med illustrationer av Wilhelm Schulz, betraktar jag som ett fynd — inte för berättelsens skull utan för bilderna.

Och att det i alla tider funnits äventyrliga människor visar "Across Asia on a Bicycle"

.
THE JOURNEY OF TWO AMERICAN STUDENTS
FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO PEKING

BY
THOMAS GASKELL ALLEN, Jr.
AND
WILLIAM LEWIS SACHTLEBEN
1894

THROUGH WESTERN CHINA IN LIGHT MARCHING ORDER

.

This volume is made up of a series of sketches describing the most interesting part of a bicycle journey around the world,—our ride across Asia. We were actuated by no desire to make a “record” in bicycle travel, although we covered 15,044 miles on the wheel, the longest continuous land journey ever made around the world.

The day after we were graduated at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., we left for New York. Thence we sailed for Liverpool on June 23, 1890. Just three years afterward, lacking twenty days, we rolled into New York on our wheels, having “put a girdle round the earth.”

KIRGHIZ ERECTING KIBITKAS BY THE CHU RIVER
.

The rain now began to descend in torrents. The felt covering was drawn over the central opening, and propped up at one end with a pole to emit the clouds of smoke from the smoldering fire. This was shifted with the veering wind. Although a mere circular rib framework covered with white or brown felt, according as the occupant is rich or poor, the Kirghiz kibitka, or more properly yurt, is not as a house builded upon the sand, even in the fiercest storm. Its stanchness and comfort are surprising when we consider the rapidity with which it may be taken down and transported. In half an hour a whole village may vanish, emigrating northward in summer, and southward in winter.

Kanske något för Christina?