Excepting an isolated little chateau here and there, and an occasional
diligence and band of cantonniers, all is solitary, and the solitariness
and grandeur increase as we leave the region of rocks and ravines to
enter that of the pine--still getting higher and higher. From St.
Hippolyte to our next halting place, Maiche, the road only quits one
pine-forest to enter another, our way now being perfectly solitary, no
herdsman's hut in sight, no sound of bird or animal, nothing to break
the silence. Some of these trees are of great height--their sombre
foliage at this season of the year being relieved by an abundance of
light brown cones, which give them the appearance of gigantic Christmas
trees hung with golden gifts. Glorious as is the scenery we had lately
passed, hoary rocks clothed with richest green, verdant slopes, valleys,
and mountain sides all glowing in the sunshine--the majestic gloom and
isolation of the pine-forests appeal more to the imagination, and fill
the mind with deeper delight. Next to the sea, the pine-forest, to my
thinking, is the sublimest of nature's handiworks. Nothing can lessen,
nothing can enlarge such grandeur as we have here. Sea and pine-forest
are the same, alike in thunder-cloud or under a serene sky--summer and
winter, lightning and rain--we can hardly add by a hairbreadth to the
profundity of the impression they produce.
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