BUCKHURST PARK. 10? 
between the taller trunks when you come near. The 
odour of firs is variable ; sometimes it fills the air, some- 
times it is absent altogether, and doubtless depends 
upon certain conditions of the atmosphere. A very 
small pinch of the fresh shoot is pleasant to taste; these 
shoots, eaten constantly, were once considered to cure 
chest disease, and to this day science endeavours by 
various forms of inhalations from fir products to check 
that malady. Common rural experience, as with the 
cow-pox, has often laid the basis of medical treatment. 
Certain it is that it is extremely pleasant and grateful 
to breathe the sweet fragrance of the fir deep in the 
woods, listening to the soft caressing sound of the wind 
that passes high overhead. The willow-wren sings, but 
his voice and that of the wind seem to give emphasis to 
the holy and meditative silence. The mystery of nature 
and life hover about the columned temple of the forest. 
The secret is always behind a tree, as of old time it was 
always behind the pillar of the temple. Still higher, 
and as the firs cease, and shower and sunshine, wind 
and dew, can reach the ground unchecked, comes the 
tufted heath and branched heather of the moorland top. 
A thousand acres of purple heath sloping southwards to 
the sun, deep valleys of dark heather; further slopes 
beyond of purple, more valleys of heather—the heath 
shows more in the sunlight, and heather darkens the 
shadow of the hollows—and so on and on, mile after 
mile, till the heath-bells seem to end in the sunset. 
Round and beyond is the immense plain of the air— 
you feel how limitless the air is at this height, for there 
is nothing to measure it by. Past the weald lie the 
South Downs, but they form no boundary, the plain of 
the air goes over them to the sea and space. 
This wild tract of Ashdown Forest bears much 
