ESCAPE FROM THE FOREST. 393 



gouche, to a ridge of good land where there were akeady 

 many settlers, and where the sounds and sights and 

 sympathies of civilised life would be within his reach. 

 Of strong-minded men, like this Evans, capable under 

 emergencies of great self-control and self-denial, these 

 wilderness countries exhibit to the traveller many 

 striking examples. 



In Evans' hut, I made tea for the whole trio ; and 

 then, having fed our horse with a bottle of his new 

 oats, we again proceeded. Twelve miles beyond, the 

 , country changed. It became broken with distinct hills 

 and ridges. The forest trees altered also. Instead of 

 pine and white birch, maple, red birch, and hornbeam, 

 mingled with rarer pines, hung out their broad leaves — 

 already assuming their autumn tints — to the declining 

 sun. We had come upon what was called a hardwood 

 ridge of strong fertile land ; and I cannot express the 

 welcome feeling with which, while still two thousand feet 

 above the sea, I looked far forward along the narrow 

 road, chiselled as it were out of the old forest, upon a 

 green field in the distance — the first symptom of our 

 approach to a region where art and human intelligence 

 were successfully striving with the long mastery which 

 unbridled nature had been exercising over the submis- 

 sive soil. 



We had some time before passed the culminating point 

 of this extensive traverse, and were now descending a 

 long slope looking towards the south. This descent 

 brought us, in what I now thought a short period of 

 time, to the final limits of the primeval forest. I almost 

 felt unwiUing to leave behind me its more cheerful 

 broad-leaved beauty, as we emerged among cleared 

 fields, where the still golden stubble indicated that wheat, 

 or oats, or rye, had recently been reaped ; and where the 

 large green leaves of the turnip, and the blooming tops 

 of the potato, still covered the ground. 



