334 



THE FIR TRIBE. 



the destruction would have been still more 

 appalling."^ 



The manner of conveying Fir-timber from 

 these forests to the sea is thus described by 

 Dr. Clarke : At Helsinborg some Fir-trees of as- 

 tonishing height were conducted by wheel-axles 

 to the water side. A separate vehicle was em- 

 ployed for each tree, drawn by horses which 

 were driven by women. These long, white, and 

 taper shafts of deal timber, divested of their 

 bark, afforded the first specimens of the produce 

 of those boundless forests of which we had, till 

 then, formed no conception." 



We remember," says Sir T. D. Lauder, 

 ^^ha^dng been thrown into some degree of 

 alarm by encountering one of the enormous Sil- 

 ver Fir-logs, as w^e were going up the Jura. 

 Our caleche had got three parts of . the way up 

 tlie hill, where the road gradually ascended along 

 the perpendicular face of the mountain, and 

 hung over the valley and village we had left, 

 which looked like some toy as it lay in the 

 narrow bottom below, when we were suddenly 

 met by a vast Pine-log, laid, not on two carts, 

 as with us, to keep it steady, but on one cart, 

 whence both the butt and top projected, so that 

 the point jerked backwards and forwards ^\ith 

 terrific force and elasticity. 



^' To our infinite horror this magnificent sylvan 

 specimen took the wall of us, and we must 

 confess that we have spent few more anxious 

 minutes during our lives than that which was 

 occupied in steering by this danger ; for if we 

 had been but touched by the tree in its jerking 



* R;C. Taylor. 



