WILD PASTURES 



approaching, instead of the thing I 

 sought. The scent of the swamp is 

 cool with humid humus, musky with the 

 breath of the skunk-cabbage, woodsy 

 with that quaint exhalation which you 

 get from the ferns, our oldest form of 

 plant life, still retaining and lending to 

 you as you pass the odor of the very 

 forest primeval. These are the base, and 

 they carry the lighter and daintier odors 

 as ambergris, a vile and dreadful but 

 very strong smell, carries the dainty 

 scents of the perfumer, and just as they 

 in turn give you no hint of the amber- 

 gris which is their base, so the odor of 

 the swamp gives you little hint of these 

 three but is a delight of its own. 



Beyond the little corner which I must 



cross in the straight line I had taken 



was a small hillock of open pasture, 



fringed on the farther side with alder 



40 



