MOUNTAIN-FOEESTS. 67 



sort of undefined awe, as if I knew not what I might 

 meet in those deep soHtudes, where 



" The roof 



Of thickest covert was inwoven shade." 



But when once we are within the shade, and the 

 pupil of the eye, relieved of the broad glare, has had 

 time to dilate a little, there is found to be abundant 

 light for every purpose, softened and subdued as it is 

 by being transmitted through the thousand green 

 leaves that quiver and flash over head. The ground 

 is very rocky ; vast masses of rock lying irregularly 

 heaped on one another, as if the fabled Titans had 

 been attempting to scale heaven from thence. Com- 

 paratively few of the trees are large, the great ma- 

 jority showing trunks so slender as to suggest the 

 idea of second growth ; that is, of wood springing 

 up spontaneously after the ground had been once 

 cleared. But the great prostrate trunks, lying in all 

 directions, so soft with decomposition as scarcely to 

 bear their own weight, — long columnar masses of 

 pap-like substance, woody fibre deprived of tenacity 

 and saturated with water, the outer surface for se- 

 veral inches deep already turned to black mould, and 

 bearing a dense crop of ferns and mosses, — proved 

 convincingly that the hand of man had not disturbed 

 the primal forest here; but that these giants had 

 died a natural death where for ages they had reared 

 their lofty heads. Many of these fallen trunks, and 

 of the masses of rock, are covered with a dense and 

 elegant sort of club-moss {Lycopodiwni) ; a graceful 

 drapery concealing the decay of the former, and the 



