NO MAN'S LAND. 207 



To their eager questions concerning his mishap, he 

 replied surlily that he had " fell up agin summat." 



With a fresh landowner, new regulations came 

 into force, and that unruly crew were dispersed or 

 brought into order. The country itself remains as 

 it was, excepting for the ravages made by the forest- 

 fires. Large gaps here and there are to be regretted, 

 not on account of the bareness of the land, but 

 because those very old furze covers of giant growth 

 are gone, the like never, we fear, to be seen again. 

 It takes a long, long time for a furze stem to reach 

 a growth as thick as the girth of a man's leg. 

 When they were destroyed by fire, a fresh growth 

 sprang up directly the ground got cool and moist. 



I saw the white ashes of that great fire which the 

 foresters had so much difficulty in keeping back. 

 The vast accumulation of fir-needles which had fallen 

 for generations was burnt to a white mass two feet 

 deep in places. One would have imagined it enough 

 to destroy all promise of vegetation for years to come. 

 It was not so. In about six weeks the bare spots 

 were covered with green. 



In certain lonely districts the old feudal system 

 might still be in force. Those families that had lived 



