nd we will stroll along
the beach."

I accepted his offer eagerly, and we began to walk along the shores of
this extraordinary lake. To our left were abrupt rocks, piled one upon
the other--a stupendous titanic pile; down their sides leaped
innumerable cascades, which at last, becoming limpid and murmuring
streams, were lost in the waters of the lake. Light vapors, which rose
here and there, and floated in fleecy clouds from rock to rock,
indicated hot springs, which also poured their superfluity into the vast
reservoir at our feet.

Among them I recognized our old and faithful stream, the Hansbach,
which, lost in that wild basin, seemed as if it had been flowing since
the creation of the world.

"We shall miss our excellent friend," I remarked, with a deep sigh.

"Bah!" said my uncle testily, "what matters it? That or another, it is
all the same."

I thought the remark ungrateful, and felt almost inclined to say so; but
I forbore.

At this moment my attention was attracted by an unexpected spectacle.
After we had gone about five hundred yards, we suddenly turned a steep
promontory, and found ourselves close to a lofty forest! It consisted of
straight trunks with tufted tops, in shape like parasols. The air seemed
to have no effect upon these trees--which in spite of a tolerable breeze
remained as still and motionless as if they had been petrified.

I hastened forward. I could find no name for these singular formations.
Did they not belong to the two thousand and more known trees--or were we
to make the discovery of a new growth? By no means. When we at last
reached the forest, and stood beneath the trees, my surprise gave way to
admiration.

In truth, I was simply in the presence of a very ordinary product of the
earth, of singular and gigantic proportions. My uncle unhesitatingly
called them by their real names.

"It is only," he said, in his coolest manner, "a forest of mushrooms."

On close examination I found that he was not mistaken. Judge of the
development attained by this product of damp hot soils. I had heard that
the Lycoperdon giganteum reaches nine feet in circumference, but here
were white mushrooms, nearly forty feet high, and with tops of equal
dimensions. They grew in countless thousands--the light could not make
its way through their massive substance, and beneath them reigned a
gloomy and mystic darkness.

Still I wished to go forward. The cold in the shades of this singular
forest was