FAR AND NEAR 



choked thickets! These men were clearing the 

 roads of weeds with it. We saw the light blue 

 wreath of smoke from their fire going up through 

 the dark, glistening green of the forest that clothed 

 the mountain, when we were far below them. Their 

 dog lay curled up by the fire, where something for 

 their dinner was simmering, and barked at us as 

 any other self-respecting dog would have done. 



This is the region of the tree ferns, — the only 

 place where we found them, — straight, rough, hairy 

 shafts, five or six inches through, and twelve or fif- 

 teen feet high, with a circle of delicate, wide-spread- 

 ing fronds at the top, — broad, tapering sheets or 

 plumes of green lace crowning a crabbed, touch- 

 me-not-looking column. 



On the vertical bank of the roadside, what a 

 wealth of mosses and small ferns and plants ! with 

 now and then in the more sunny places a just 

 ripening wild strawberry. We had often to pause 

 and feast our eyes upon this marvelous veil behind 

 which Nature hides her cleft rocks in the trop- 

 ics. How dark and dense and bearded and choked 

 the forest sweeping down the mountain-side below 

 us, shaggy, glistening, almost scaly, fanged; with 

 touches of rare and delicate beauty, but with an as- 

 pect, on the whole, strange, forbidding, treacherous ! 



When a turn in the path gave us unexpected 

 views across the deep valley upon the huge flank of 

 Blue Mountain Peak, and of its great sweeping sky- 

 250 



