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In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation in spring used to be graphically represented on St. Bride's Day, the first of February.

They carried their bows and arrows, of course, and were fully alert, studying the trail at intervals and listening for "signs of the enemy." Their moccasined feet gave forth no sound, and their keen eyes took in every leaf that stirred as their sinewy forms glided among the huge trunks of the primeval vegetation at least, Yan's note-book said they did.

In concluding this chapter dealing with the various kinds of plants which have been discovered as contributing to the formation of coal-measures, it would be as well to say a word or two concerning the climate which must have been necessary to permit of the growth of such an abundance of vegetation.

Ever and again strange noises could be heard from the jungle on either side, as the various denizens of the thick tangle of vegetation were alarmed by the throb and rush of the steamer, with its strange wave that rushed up to the bank, and startled many a nocturnal creature from its lurking-place, where it lay watching in search of prey.

During the first few weeks nothing came amiss to him. "To be on land after three months at sea is of itself a great change. But to be in such a land! The dark faces, with white turbans, and flowing robes; the trees not our trees; the very smell of the atmosphere that of a hothouse, and the architecture as strange as the vegetation."

Similarly, to explain the wonderful growth of vegetation in the fertile valley of Tumut, its inhabitants assure travellers that pumpkin and melon vines grow so rapidly there that the pumpkins and melons are worn out in being dragged after them.

The upper horizontal lines on the face denote clouds; the perpendicular lines denote rain; the lower horizontal and perpendicular lines denote the first vegetation used by man.

The landscape in the neighbourhood of Bahia almost takes its character from the two latter trees. Before seeing them, I had no idea that any trees could cast so black a shade on the ground. Both of them bear to the evergreen vegetation of these climates the same kind of relation which laurels and hollies in England do to the lighter green of the deciduous trees.

Beneath them lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid which appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of an upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the year by the thicker growth of foliage. The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than the inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe.

The very act of locating a spot represented as famous and now seemingly forgotten had a fascination about it that excited our imagination; we fell into conjectures regarding the scenery, vegetation, and above all, the location of this forgotten place.