34 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



the heart of a wood at home is cool and shady 

 on the hottest, brightest day of summer, but 

 the giant trees of the tropical jungle, many of 

 them two or three hundred feet in height, so 

 effectually shut out the light of day that the 

 effect is, as already remarked, suggestive of 

 the light of sea-caves, green and ghostly ; and 

 perhaps it is this dim, religious light, recalling 

 old cathedrals, that has invested the forest 

 with its uncanny associations. It is silent, 

 solemn, wide and cold, ever reminding us of 

 those submerged coal forests of ancient 

 Britain, in the gloomy recesses of which 

 primeval crocodiles and other vanished reptiles 

 dozed beneath the spreading foliage of club- 

 mosses. Of such impressive age are its 

 greatest trees that the passing of nations leaves 

 them unmoved. Unhappily, this restful effect 

 of permanence belongs only to the forest 

 primeval where the wasteful hand of man has 

 not yet swung the axe and laid the monarchs 

 low. The majesty of these tree giants, as I 

 remember it at Wawona and elsewhere in 

 California, beggars description. The great 

 sequoias stand around silent and contemptuous. 

 They were drinking in the sunshine five thou- 

 sand years ago, and the monstrous dinotherium 

 may have ended its days in their shadow, long 

 before the coming of man. What, compared 

 with the lifetime of such timber, are the few 



