26o CANADIAN NIGHTS 



pine, encumbered with hanging festoons of moss, 

 strives to grow in the wet soil ; and on drier spots, 

 two or three tall, naked, dead firs, that have been 

 burned in some bygone fire, look pale, like ghosts 

 of trees in the deepening twilight. 



Beyond all, the forest rises, gloomy, black, 

 mysterious. Nature looks sad, worn-out, dying ; 

 as though lamenting the ancient days and the 

 inevitable approach of the white man's axe. Well 

 in harmony with her melancholy mood are the 

 birds and beasts that roam those solitudes, and 

 haunt the woods and streams. The hooting owl, 

 the loon or great northern diver, that startles the 

 night with its unearthly scream, are weird uncanny 

 creatures ; the cariboo or reindeer, which was 

 contemporary with many extinct animals on this 

 globe — mammoths, cave bears, and others — and 

 which has seen curious sights among aboriginal 

 men, has a strange look as if belonging to some 

 older world and some other time, with his fantastic 

 antlers and great white mane ; and so, too, has 

 the huge ungainly moose, that shares with him 

 the forest and the swamps. 



I had not, however, much time to indulge in 

 reverie, for scarcely had I sat down before I heard 

 old John call gently like a moose to attract my 



