round, some attached to other trunks and sucking out their
life with a thousand roots, others interlaced in the air in distorted
curves. All these grow and thrive on the bodies of former generations
on the damp, mouldy ground, where leaves rot and trunks decay, and
where it is always wet, as never a sunbeam can strike in so far.

Thus it is sad in the forest, and strangely quiet, as in a churchyard,
for not even the wind can penetrate the green surface. It passes
rushing through the crowns, so that sometimes we catch an upward
glimpse of bright yellow sunshine as though out of a deep gully. And
as men in sternest fight are silent, using all their energy for one
purpose, so here there is no sign of gay and happy life, there are
no flowers or coloured leaves, but the endless, dull green, in an
infinity of shapes.

Even the animals seem to shun the dark forest depths; only on the
highest trees a few pigeons bathe in the sun, and as they fly heavily
over the wood, their call sounds, melancholy as a sad dream, from
afar. A lonely butterfly flutters among the trees, a delicate being,
unused to this dark world, seeking in vain for a ray of sun and a
breath of fresh air. Sometimes we hear the grunt of an invisible
pig, the breaking of branches and the rustling of leaves as it runs
away. Moisture and lowering gloom brood over the swampy earth; one
would not be surprised if suddenly the ground were to move and wriggle
like slimy snakes tightly knotted around each other. Thorns catch the
limbs, vines catch the feet, and the wanderer, stumbling along, almost
fancies he can hear the spiteful laughter of malicious demons. One
feels tired, worried, unsafe, as if in an enemy's country, helplessly
following the guide, who walks noiselessly on the soft ground. With
a branch he sweeps aside the innumerable spider-webs that droop
across the path, to keep them from hanging in our faces. Silently
the other men follow behind; once in a while a dry branch snaps or
a trunk creaks.

In this dark monotony we go on for hours, without an outlook, and
seemingly without purpose or direction, on a hardly visible path, in
an endless wilderness. We pass thousands of trees, climb over hundreds
of fallen trunks and brush past millions of creepers. Sometimes we
enter a clearing, where a giant tree has fallen or a village used to
stand. Sometimes great coral rocks lie in the thicket; the pools at
their foot are a wallowing-place for pigs.

It is a conf