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The romance of the sea creates a Robinson Crusoe. The still greater romance of the forest creates a Kit Carson. It often makes even an old man's blood thrill in his veins, to contemplate the wild and wondrous adventures, which this majestic continent opened to the pioneers of half a century ago.
The Forest Region of the Russian botanists occupies the greater part of the country, from the Arctic tundras to the Steppes, and it maintains over this immense surface a remarkable uniformity of character.
In olden times, when half of Britain was under forest, and when guns were not yet invented that could "shoot flying," woodcocks must have been much more plentiful than they are to-day. In those times the bird was taken on the ground in springes or, when "roding" in the mating season, in nets, known as "shots," that were hung between the trees.
With no other thought than that he could find his way to the marsh and across it to the forest without difficulty, he turned to retrace his steps. "Even if I can't see far, I can follow my tracks I made coming in," he said confidently. "That'll be dead easy." Every moment the wind was rising, and the storm was increasing in fury.
In the morning they again walked about the deserted streets of the city. They saw no one and heard no living sound. It was like a city of the dead. They grew hungry at length; and the lad went outside the city to seek for food in the forest, according to the custom which he had known all his life. The mother returned to her old home to await the coming of her son.
We were now in a country that had been desolated by a forest fire within four or five years. The moss under foot had not renewed itself and where any of it remained at all, it was charred and black. The trees were dead and the land harbored almost no life. It seemed to me that even the fish had been scalded out of the water and the streams had never restocked themselves.
The setting sun starts a beautiful game of shine and shadow in among the trees of the gum forest; the aromatic exhalations from the trees give the evening air a hint of balm and spice; the people driving or riding grow a little pensive, for the spell of the Australian forest, "tender, intimate, spiritual," is upon them.
Emerald grass was already filming the ground about the house; from under the deep rich brown of the forest flooring spring had thrust a million tiny spears of green. The redwoods wore plushy plumes of blue new foliage, and a wild lilac at the edge of the clearing drifted like pale smoke against the dark woods.
The storm over, he swings easily in his hammock, recruiting strength for fresh exertion; and even when the winds howl their worst, give him a tight ship and sea-room, and he holds himself safe and laughs at the tempest. The explorer of trackless plain and aboriginal forest is in a very different predicament.
The Lincolns went right on board with their pack horses, and it carried them across the shining water to the wooded shores of Indiana. Indiana was a much wilder place than Kentucky. There was no road leading to Pigeon Creek; only a path through the forest. It was so narrow that sometimes Tom had to clear away some underbrush before they could go on.
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