The Underbrush Is Chiefly
Alder, Rubus, Ledum, Three Species Of Vaccinium, And Echinopanax
Horrida, The Whole About From Six To Eight Feet High, And In Some
Places Closely Intertangled And Hard To Penetrate.
On the opener
spots beneath the trees the ground is covered to a depth of two or
three feet with mosses of indescribable freshness and beauty, a few
dwarf corners often planted on their rich furred bosses, together
with pyrola, coptis, and Solomon's-seal.
The tallest of the trees are
about a hundred and fifty feet high, with a diameter of about four
or five feet, their branches mingling together and making a perfect
shade. As the twilight began to fall, I sat down on the mossy instep
of a spruce. Not a bush or tree was moving; every leaf seemed hushed
in brooding repose. One bird, a thrush, embroidered the silence with
cheery notes, making the solitude familiar and sweet, while the
solemn monotone of the stream sifting through the woods seemed like
the very voice of God, humanized, terrestrialized, and entering one's
heart as to a home prepared for it. Go where we will, all the world
over, we seem to have been there before.
The stream was bridged at short intervals with picturesque,
moss-embossed logs, and the trees on its banks, leaning over from
side to side, made high embowering arches. The log bridge I crossed
was, I think, the most beautiful of the kind I ever saw. The massive
log is plushed to a depth of six inches or more with mosses of three
or four species, their different tones of yellow shading finely into
each other, while their delicate fronded branches and foliage lie in
exquisite order, inclining outward and down the sides in rich,
furred, clasping sheets overlapping and felted together until the
required thickness is attained.
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