402 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



dous fliouts. But at fight of the hallowed fhrulj 

 which I carried in my hands, and which I raifed 

 into the air, they fell proftrate on the bottom of 

 their barges, as if they had been ftruck with a 

 power divine ; fuch is the power of fuperftition 

 over minds enflaved. We, accordingly, paflcd 

 through the midft of them, without fuftaining the 

 flighteli injury. 



We forced our way up the river during the 

 courfe of a day. After this, having gone aQiore, 

 we bent our courfe toward the Weft, acrofs forefts 

 almoft impraticable. Their foil was here and 

 there covered with trees, laid low by the hand of 

 Time. It had throughout a carpeting of mofs, 

 thick and fpongy, into which we fometimes funk 

 up to the knees. The roads which divide thofe 

 forefts, and which ferve as boundaries to different 

 Nations of the Gauls, were (o little frequented, 

 that trees of confiderable fize had fhot up in the 

 midft of them. The tribes which inhabited them 

 were ftill more favage than their Country. They 

 had no other temples except fome thunder-ftruck 

 yew-tree, or an aged oak, in the branches of 

 which fome Druid had planted an ox- head with 

 the horns. When, in the night-time, the foliage 

 of thofe trees was agitated by the Winds, and il- 

 Jumined by the light of the Moon, they imagined 

 ' that' they ùw the Spirits and the Gods of their fo- 

 ".-■ " refts. 



