THE FOREST WHEN MANTLED IN WHITE. 383 



struck across the forest for the place of rendezvous, distant, 

 as the crow flies, some seven or eight miles. 



I for my part was much fatigued and no wonder, 

 as in order to keep the peasants in line, I had been 

 necessitated, during the few preceding days, to work some- 

 thing like double tides, and our progress in consequence was 

 somewhat slow. We, however, had all our eyes about us, 

 and carefully searched every suspicious place met with on the 

 way. At times we traversed the hill-sides, and at others 

 plunged into deep ravines, where the ground was strewed 

 with innumerable boulders, under which it often happens 

 that the bear makes his winter bed. 



Some snow had recently fallen, and the trees were mantled 

 in white, which is not always the case towards the approach 

 of spring. The appearance of the Scandinavian wilds when 

 in that state is so beautifully and faithfully described by the 

 talented and lamented Inglis, that I cannot refrain from 

 quoting his words : 



" Enter a forest when the sun breaks from the mists of a 

 morning upon the snows of the past night. Beautiful as is 

 a forest in the spring, when the trees unfold their virgin 

 blossoms beautiful as it is in summer, when the wandering 

 sunbeams, falling through the foliage, chequer the mossy 

 carpet beneath beautiful as it is in the autumn, when the 

 painted leaves hang frail it is more beautiful still when the 

 tall pines, and gnarled oaks, stand in the deep silence of a 

 winter noon, their long arms and fantastic branches heaped 

 with the feathered burthen, ' that has never caught one stain 

 of earth.' Then, too, the grey rocks, picturesque even in 

 their nakedness, assume a thousand forms more curious still 

 when dashed with the recent offering." 





