THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 383 



Iii Africa, forests of any size or density only exist in the moun- 

 tainous countries and towards the western littoral ; as, notably, in 

 the Soudan, the Senegal, in Guinea, at the Gaboon, and on the coasts 

 of Angola and Benguela. In North America, civilization has accom- 

 plished, in less than three centuries, the work which in Europe 

 occupied a much longer period. The magnificent forests which spread 

 their awful shades their vast luxuriance of gloom over the surface 

 of this continent have fallen before the axe of the pioneer. Only at 

 a few points is realized the fine picture of the poet ; only in a few 

 untrodden recesses still flourishes the primeval forest, where 



"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, 



Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, 

 Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, 

 Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms."* 



When Captain Palliser's expedition attempted to reach the head 

 waters of the North Thompson from the sources of the North 

 Saskatchewan River, the leader encountered a forest-growth so dense, 

 and so encumbered with fallen timber, that it proved an insurmount- 

 able obstacle. Viscount Milton and Mr. Cheadle, in their adventurous 

 journey across the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia, were in- 

 volved in one of these wildernesses, and with difficulty effected a 

 passage. " No one," they remark,-}- " who has not seen a primeval 

 forest, where trees of gigantic size have grown and fallen undisturbed 

 for ages, can form any idea of the collection of timber, or the im- 

 penetrable character of such a region. There were pines and thujas 

 of every size the patriarch of 300 feet in height standing alone, or 

 thickly-clustering groups of young ones struggling for the vacant place 

 of some prostrate giant. The fallen trees lay piled around, forming 

 barriers often six or eight feet high on every side : trunks of huge 

 cedars, moss-grown and decayed, lay half-buried in the ground on 

 which others as mighty had recently fallen; trees still green and living, 

 recently blown down, blocking the view with the walls of earth held 



* Longfellow, " Poetical Works " Evangeline. 



f Milton and Cheadle, " North-West Passage by Land," chap. xv. 



25 



