THE SCENE: The Berber scholar Abu Hamid al-Andalusi describes the wondrous wooden planks that the people of Bulgaria use to traverse across the snow.
THE TEXT: The way to these places crosses country permanently covered in snow. The people fasten specially smoothed boards on their feet. Each board is a fathom long and a palm wide, and both the front and the back curve up from the ground. In the middle of the board, there is a place for the person to put his foot, which consists of an indentation with very strong leather straps, by which the feet are attached. Both boards, one on each foot, are yoked together by long things, like the reigns of a horse, which the man holds in his left hand. In his right, he carries a stick, the height of a man, which has at the bottom a ball of cloth filled with a very large quantity of wool, the size of a human head, but weighing very little. The man leans on this stick as he walks over the snow, pushing with it until it is behind his shoulder, like a boatman poling a boat. In this way, he moves over the snow at speed and if it were not for their ingenious contrivance, it would be absolutely impossible to walk, for the snow lies on the earth like sand and never hardens. Thus, any animal that walks across it sinks in and dies, except for dogs or other very small creatures, such as hares and foxes, because they run fast and lightly.
– The Travels of Abu Hamid al-Andalusi al-Gharnati, 12th Century AD
