PLANT-MUMMIES. 225 



Man had exhausted the resources which the vegetable 

 world of our day afforded him ; every herb bearing seed, 

 and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree, had been 

 to him for meat. But he desired more, and his restless, 

 insatiable mind longed for new realms and new powers. 

 So he went back into distant ages and exhumed the bodies 

 of ancient generations. For animals and plants both, are 

 made faithfully to return, to their common mothep earth, 

 whatever they have taken from her. The beast of the 

 field, and even proud man die, and dust returns to dust. 

 Plants, also, the first-born children of the earth, must die, 

 and return to the bosom of their great mother. But they 

 sink only to rise again, or if buried beneath the ruins of 

 ages, they preserve, even there, in eternal night, a breath 

 of their former vitality, and centuries after, their dead 

 bodies become, in the hands of man, once more a source 

 of light and life. 



From the western coast of France, vast desert plains 

 stretch far east, through northern Germany and Russia, 

 until they are lost in distant and unknown Siberia. The 

 traveller shudders, he knows not why, as the boundless 

 expanse first strikes his eye. There is no fresh waving 

 tree to whisper words of good cheer and pleasant welcome ; 

 there is not a hill, "which God delighted to dwell in." 

 All is level, covered with brownish-red heather, with the 

 golden blossom of the broom and thorny juniper-bushes. 

 Only now and then a green marsh relieves the oppressive 

 monotony, and grazing herds of cattle give life to the 

 scene; but soon again the desolate moor spreads far be- 

 yond the horizon in dark, dreary dullness, The air hangs 

 10* 



