On Inquiry,
However, I Learnt That Some Years Since A Forest Had Been Burnt.
This Appearance Of Desolation Was Beyond Measure Gloomy, Inspiring
Emotions That Sterility Had Never Produced.
Fires of this kind are
occasioned by the wind suddenly rising when the farmers are burning
roots of trees, stalks of beans, &c, with which they manure the
ground.
The devastation must, indeed, be terrible, when this,
literally speaking, wildfire, runs along the forest, flying from top
to top, and crackling amongst the branches. The soil, as well as
the trees, is swept away by the destructive torrent; and the
country, despoiled of beauty and riches, is left to mourn for ages.
Admiring, as I do, these noble forests, which seem to bid defiance
to time, I looked with pain on the ridge of rocks that stretched far
beyond my eye, formerly crowned with the most beautiful verdure.
I have often mentioned the grandeur, but I feel myself unequal to
the task of conveying an idea of the beauty and elegance of the
scene when the spiry tops of the pines are loaded with ripening
seed, and the sun gives a glow to their light-green tinge, which is
changing into purple, one tree more or less advanced contrasted with
another. The profusion with which Nature has decked them with
pendant honours, prevents all surprise at seeing in every crevice
some sapling struggling for existence. Vast masses of stone are
thus encircled, and roots torn up by the storms become a shelter for
a young generation.
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