360 THE FIR TRIBE. 



terminated, for we had felt all the while like a couple of 

 outlaws in momentary fear of surprise." 1 



The burning of these forests, however, is incorrectly 

 attributed to the effects of lightning. Fires of this kind 

 have been traced to the carelessness of the Laplanders and 

 boatmen on the rivers, who, using German tinder to light 

 their pipes, suffer it to fall in an ignited state among the 

 dry leaves and moss. They also leave large fires burning, 

 which they have kindled in the midst of the woods to 

 drive away the mosquitoes ; and in either of these ways 

 the fire is easily communicated to the surrounding trees. 



In the forest districts of the Alps, of Germany, and of 

 Norway, where the people derive a good part of their 

 existence from the timber of their trees, the modes of 

 transporting the produce to the markets are often highly 

 curious. In some cases the woodmen cut down the trees, 

 hurl or roll them into a mountain stream, and let them 

 float down to the sea, or a lake, or to any place where they 

 can be conveniently disposed of. This is comparatively 

 easy, so long as the forest is not far from a stream ; but 

 when it is inland, or situated at a great height, or separated 

 from a stream by a rugged and mountainous district, the 

 ingenuity of the woodman is taxed to the utmost to devise 

 means of transporting the timber. One of the means 

 adopted is to construct a slide, down which the trunk may 

 run by its own impetus. Early in spring the woodmen 

 set off, to begin their business of cutting down the trees 

 in the forest, perhaps many miles from their homes ; they 

 have to construct rude huts, in which they live during the 

 summer and autumnal months, and throughout the whole 

 of this period they employ themselves in cutting down the 

 noble trees which surround them. Every tree is classed 

 according to its fitness for practical purposes, and cut up 

 into logs ; and the logs so accumulated are heaped up into 

 huge piles. When winter arrives, all these logs are trans- 

 ported down to some stream or lake, by means of a slide 

 1 "Lachesis Lappomca." 



