PLANT-MUMMIKS. 231 



magne caused to be cut down, now, more than a thou- 

 sand years ago. For centuries the moors have hid in 

 their silent bosom the gigantic works of ancient Rome, 

 and posterity has gazed with awe and wonder at the mas- 

 terly roads and massive bridges, like those built of per- 

 ishable wood by Germanicus when he passed from Holland 

 into the valley of the Weser. Far, in the deep, lie buried 

 the stone hatchets and flint arrow-heads of Frisians and 

 Cheruski, by the side of the copper kettle and the iron 

 helmet of the Roman soldier. A Phoenician skiff was 

 found of late, and alongside of it a boat laden with bricks. 

 The skeletons of antediluvian animals rest there peaceably 

 by the corpses of ancient races with sandals on their feet 

 and the skins of animals around their naked bodies. Hun- 

 dreds of brave English horsemen, who sought an honorable 

 death in the battle of Solway, were swallowed up, horse 

 and men, by the insatiable moor. And in years bygone, 

 a Danish King Harold, called the Blue Tooth, allured with 

 foul treachery a fair princess of Norway, Gunhilde, to Jut- 

 land. She came, and she vanished from the memory of 

 man. History had forgotten her, tradition even began to 

 fade; but a peat-bog opened its long-closed lips, and ac- 

 cused, late but loud, the bloody king of his wicked deed. 

 The poor princess was found, far below the peat, strangled 

 and tied to a post, where her merciless foe had buried 

 her, as he thought, forever, in the abyss. 



It is a strange and most melancholy charm which these 

 low chambers of death have for the careful observer. 

 Where once gigantic animals dwelt, and tropical plants 

 flourished in splendor, where broad roads passed through 



