hes, with other monarchs of the wilderness,
lifted their trunks like so many pillars, green with mosses and ivies,
and swung their majestic arms, tufted with mistletoe, far over head,
supporting a canopy,--a series of domes and arches without end,--that had
for ages overshadowed the soil. Their roots, often concealed by a billowy
undergrowth of shrubs and bushes, oftener by brakes of the gigantic and
evergreen cane, forming fences as singular as they were, for the most
part, impenetrable, were yet at times visible, where open glades
stretched through the woods, broken only by buttressed trunks, and by the
stems of colossal vines, hanging from the boughs like cables, or the arms
of an oriental banyan; while their luxuriant tops rolled in union with
the leafy roofs that supported them. The vague and shadowy prospects
opened by these occasional glades stirred the imagination, and produced a
feeling of solitude in the mind, greater perhaps than would have been
felt had the view been continually bounded by a green wall of canes.

The road, if such it could be called, through this noble forest was, like
that the emigrants had so long pursued through the wilderness, a mere
path, designated, where the wood was open, by blazes, or axe-marks on the
trees; and, where the undergrowth was dense, a narrow track cut through
the canes and shrubs, scarce sufficient in many places to allow the
passage of two horsemen abreast; though when, as was frequently the case,
it followed the ancient routes of the bisons to fords and salt-licks, it
presented, as Bruce had described, a wide and commodious highway,
practicable even to wheeled carriages.

The gait of the little party over this road was at first rapid and cheery
enough; but by and by, having penetrated deeper into the wood, where
breezes and sunbeams were alike unknown, they found their progress
impeded by a thousand pools and sloughs, the consequences of the storm,
that stretched from brake to brake. These interruptions promised to make
the evening journey longer than Roland had anticipated; but he caught, at
intervals, the fresh foot-prints of his comrades in the soil where it was
not exposed to the rains, and reflected with pleasure, that, travelling
even at the slowest pace, he must reach the ford where he expected to
find them encamped, long before dark. He felt, therefore, no uneasiness
at the delay; nor did he think any of those obstacles to rapid progress a
cause for regret tha