CHRISTMAS AT SABBA DAY FALLS . 281 
England. As this growth includes few spruces, 
hemlocks, or pines, it has escaped the timber 
fiends. There are among its trees giant yellow 
birches, saffron-colored in the mist; beeches a 
century old, with trunks moulded into shapes 
suggestive of human limbs strong in muscles, 
rock maples eighty or ninety feet high and 
hemlocks with coarse bark unbroken by limbs 
until, a hundred feet from the hillside, a mat 
of their interwoven branches finds the sunlight. 
The cultivated fields and pasture lands of the 
intervale are singularly free from rocks. Here 
and there a great boulder can be found, but it 
is conspicuous in its loneliness. On this hill¬ 
side, however, boulders of all shapes and sizes 
are strewn. Most of them are about the size 
of a load of hay. They are covered with showy 
lichens and the greenest of green mosses. Se¬ 
lecting one at the very summit of the hill, we 
searched under its overhanging sides for dry 
leaves and twigs. Then we broke an old stump 
into pieces and tore the curling bark from a 
prostrate birch. All this material was more or 
less damp, but by patience we secured a little 
bed of coals which soon dried the rest of our 
fuel, so that before long a bright blaze and a 
warm glow gladdened our eyes and comforted 
our chilled bodies. Then came our cheery 
Christmas dinner in the primeval forest, upon 
