344 



THE SCOTCH FIR OR PINE. 



mar," says Sir T. D. Lauder, the endless Fir 

 woods run up all the ramifications and subdi- 

 visions of the tributary valleys, cover the lower 

 elevations, climb the sides of the higher hills, and 

 even in many cases approach the very roots of the 

 giant mountains which tower over them ; yet with 

 all this, the reader is mistaken if he supposes that 

 any tiresome uniformity exists among these wilds. 

 Every movement we make exposes to our view 

 fresh objects of excitement, and discloses new 

 scenes produced by the infinite variety of the 

 surface. At one time we find ourselves wander- 

 ing along some natural level under the deep and 

 sublime shade of the heavy Pine foliage, upheld 

 high over head by the tall and massive columnar 

 stems, W'hich appear to form an endless colonnade ; 

 the ground dry as a fioor beneath our footsteps, 

 the very sound of which is muffled by the thick 

 deposition of decayed spines with which the sea- 

 sons of more than one century have strewed it ; 

 hardly conscious that the sun is up, save from the 

 fragrant resinous odour which its influence is 

 exhaling, and the continued hum of the clouds of 

 insects that are dancing in its beams over the tops 

 of the trees. Anon, the ground begins to swell 

 into hillocks, and here and there the continuity of 

 shade is broken by a broad rush of light stream- 

 ing down through some vacant space, and brightly 

 illuminating a single tree of huge dimensions and 

 of grand form, which, rising from a little knoll, 

 stands out in bold relief from the darker masses 

 behind it, where the shadows again sink deep and 

 fathomless among the red and grey stems ; whilst 

 Nature, luxuriating in the light that gladdens the 

 little glade, pours forth her richest Highland trea- 



