Cliapter IV. 



The plateau is completely covered by a great forest of tree 

 heaths. In this forest trunks and boughs are entirely smothered 

 in a thick layer of mosses which hang like waving beards from 

 every spray, cnsliion and englobe every knot, cm-1 and swell 



KicnrcHU. 



around each twig, deform every outline and obliterate every 

 feature, till the trees are a mere mass of grotesque contortions, 

 monsti'ous tumefactions of the discoloured, le23rous growtli. 

 No leaf is to be seen save on the very top-most twigs, 

 yet the forest is dark owing to the dense netwoi'k of trunks 

 and branches. The soil disappears altogether under innumer- 

 able dead trunks, heaped one upon another in intricate piles, 

 covered with mosses, viscous and slippery where exposed to 

 the air ; black, naked, and yet neither mildewed nor rotten 

 where they have lain for years and years in deep holes. No 

 forest can be grimmer and stranger than this. The vegetation. 



130 



