My Strange Rescue — Through the Trackless forest

A hearty round of applause followed the conclusion of the old Scotchman's story, and by general consent it was voted the best told during the evening.

*THROUGH THE TRACKLESS FOREST.

* The two features of nature in which her might, her majesty, her mystery, find fullest expression, are the ocean and the forest.

Regarding their vastness and their unchanging character, in our weak endeavour to find terms for the infinite we have made them symbols of eternity.

Irresistible, perennial is the fascination they possess for man, and all-satisfying the measure with which they respond to his demands.

On ocean's bosom or in the forest's heart he finds free play for his noblest qualities.

In making them subservient to his will he has achieved his grandest development.

Nowhere round the globe are the forests finer than on this continent of ours.

Boundless in extent and endless in diversity, the eye never wearies of resting upon them or seeking to penetrate their depths.

Happily free as they are from the dense matted undergrowth that makes progress through the forests of the tropics a continuous penitential pilgrimage, they present glorious vistas of silvan shade, shot through with golden shafts of sunlight, down which you may wander at your ease in unchecked communion with nature.

By way of comparison just place these two pictures side by side.

Seeking to give some conception of the interminable Congo forest, in which he spent so many months of misery, Stanley exclaims: "Take a thick Scottish copse dripping with rain; imagine this copse to be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable shade of ancient trees, ranging from one hundred feet to one hundred and eighty feet high;

briers and thorns abundant; lazy creeks meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river.

Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and growth--old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen prostrate: ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, and colours murmuring around; monkeys and chimpanzees above, queer noises of birds and animals, crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants rush away; rain pattering down on you every other day in the year; an impure atmosphere, with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery, gloom throughout the day and darkness almost palpable throughout the night."

Turn now to Parkman, who knows and loves his forests as Miss Murfree her mountains, and who has once and for all time painted the picture of the great American forest: "Deep recesses, where, veiled in foliage, some wild, shy rivulet steals with timid music through breathless caves of verdure; gulfs where feathered crags rise like castle walls, where the noonday sun pierces with keen rays athwart the torrent, and the mossed arms of fallen pines cast wandering shadows on the illumined foam; pools of liquid crystal turned emerald in the reflected green of impending woods; rocks on whose rugged front the gleam of sunlit waters dances in quivering light; ancient trees hurled headlong by the storm to dam the raging stream with their forlorn and savage ruin; or the stern depths of immemorial forests, dim and silent as a cavern, columned with innumerable trunks, each like an Atlas upholding its world of leaves, and sweating perpetual moisture down its dark and channelled rind--some strong in youth, some gouty with decrepit age, nightmares of strange distortion, gnarled and knotted with wens and goitres, roots intertwined beneath like serpents petrified in an agony of contorted strife: green and glistening mosses carpeting the rough ground, mantling the rocks, turning pulpy stumps to mounds of verdure, and swathing fallen trunks, as, bent in the impotence of rottenness, they lie outstretched over knoll and hollow like mouldering reptiles of the primeval world, while around, and on, and through them springs the young growth that fattens on their decay--the forest devouring its own dead.

Or, to turn from its funereal shade to the light and life, to the open woodland, the sheen of sparkling lakes, and mountains basking in the glory of the summer noon, flecked by the shadows of passing clouds that sail on snowy wings across the transparent azure."

No pestilent fever or insidious deadly miasma lurks in our forests.

On the contrary, their pure, piny breath brings back health to many an ailing mortal, and beneath their feathery hemlocks and aromatic spruces one may lie down at night in sweet security from snakes, or centipedes, or other crawling horrors that make each night in a tropical forest a period of peril.

Is there one of us recalling the life of the _coureurs de bois_, the men who above all others made the trackless forest their own, does not feel a stirring of the pulses of admiration and envy, and a pathetic regret that those romantic days in which they flourished are over for ever?

They were the natural outcome of the beaver trade, which in the earliest stage of Canadian history formed the struggling French colony's chief source of support.

All that was most active and vigorous in the colony took to the woods, thereby escaping from the oppressive control of intendants, councils, and priests, to the savage freedom of the wilderness.

Not only were the possible profits great, but in the pursuit of them there was a fascinating element of adventure and danger, which irresistibly appeals to the spirit of enterprise and daring that civilization has not yet quite extinguished within our breasts.

Though not a very valuable member of society, and a thorn in the side of princes and rulers, the _coureur do bois_ had his uses, at least from an artistic point of view; and his strange figure, sometimes brutally savage, but oftener marked with the lines of a dare-devil courage, and a reckless, thoughtless gaiety, will always be joined to the memories of that grand world of woods which the nineteenth century is fast civilizing out of existence.

[Illustration: COUREUR DE BOIS.

_Page_ 244. ] Lost in the forest!

What a thrill runs swift to the heart as we repeat the words!

Ever since our young eyes overflowed at the immortal legend of the babes in the wood, sleeping the sleep that knew no awakening beneath the leafy winding-sheet brought them by their bird mourners, we seem to have had a clear conception of all the terrors the phrase implies, and we follow with throbbing pulses and bated breath the recital of such an experience as the foremost and noblest of all the pioneers of these North American forests had.

One eventful autumn, nearly three centuries ago, Champlain had caught sight of a strange-looking bird, and left his party to go in pursuit.

Flitting from tree to tree, the bird lured him deeper and deeper into the forest, then took wing and vanished.

On essaying to retrace his steps Champlain found himself at a loss.

Whither should he turn?

The day was clouded, and he had left his compass in camp.

The forest closed around him, trees mingled with trees in limitless confusion.

Bewildered and lost he wandered all day, and at night slept fasting at the foot of a great tree.

Awaking chilled and faint, he walked until afternoon, then happily found a pond upon whose bosom were water-fowl, some of which he shot, and for the first time broke his fast.

Kindling a fire he prepared his supper, and lay down to sleep in a drenching rain.

Another day of blind and weary wandering succeeded, and another night of exhaustion.

He found paths in the wilderness, but they had not been made by human feet.

After a time the tinkling of a brook touched his ear, and he determined to follow its course, in the hope that it would lead him to the river where his party was encamped.

"With toilsome steps he traced the infant stream, now lost beneath the decaying masses of fallen trunks or the impervious intricacies of matted windfalls, now stealing through swampy thickets or gurgling in the shade of rocks, till it entered at length, not into the river, but into a small lake.

Circling around the brink, he found the point where, gliding among clammy roots of alders, the brook ran out and resumed its course."

Pressing persistently forward, he at length forced his way out of the entanglement of underbrush into an open meadow, and there before him rolled the river, broad and turbulent, its bank marked with the portage-path by which the Indians passed the neighbouring rapids.

The good God be praised!

he had found the clue he sought.

Inexpressibly relieved, he hastened along the river-side, and in a few hours more was being joyfully welcomed by his companions, who had been anxiously searching for him.

"From that day forth," we are told, "his host, Durantal, would never suffer him to go into the forest alone."

Although the _coureur de bois_ has long since made his exit, there still remains in Canada a class of men who have somewhat in common with him.

These are lumber-scouts or bush-rangers, whose business it is to seek for "limits" that will pay handsome profits.

It is boards, not beavers, they have upon their minds.

They are often Indians or half-breeds, and the skill of these self-taught surveyors is sometimes very remarkable.

They will explore the length and breadth of the _terra incognita_, and report upon the kind and value of its timber, the situation, and capability of its streams for floating out the logs, and the facilities for hauling and transportation.

They will even map out the surface of the country, showing the position of its streams and lakes, its groves of timber, and its mountainous or level appearance, with a skill and accuracy bewildering to ordinary mortals, in whose eyes the whole district would be one great confused wilderness.

No more interesting experience in woodcraft could be had than a scouting excursion in such company.

The trackless forest has no terrors, no mysteries for them.

To them Nature opens her heart, and tells all her secrets.

In lightest marching order, each man's entire equipment being carried in a shoulder-pack upheld by a "tump-line" around the forehead, they plunge into the wilderness.

With unerring instinct they pursue their way, now following the course of some winding stream, now circling a tiny lake lying gem-like in a verdurous setting, now scrambling amongst cliffs, where, to paraphrase Parkman, seeing but unseen, the crouched wild-cat eyes them from the thicket; now threading a maze of water-girded rocks, which the white cedar and the spruce clasp with serpent-like roots; then diving into leafy depths where the rock-maple rears its green masses, the beech its glistening leaves and clear smooth stem, while behind, stiff and sombre, stands the balsam fir, and the white pine towers proudly over all.

When night falls they make their simple bivouac, and their roaring camp-fire like a magician's wand strangely transforms the scene.

As the flame casts its keen red light around, wild forms stand forth against the outer gloom--the oak, a giant in rusty mail; the mighty pyramid of the pine; the wan and ghastly birch, looking like a spectre in the darkness.

The campers gather close around the ruddy flame made welcome by the cool breath of approaching autumn, and after the broiled trout or roast duck have disappeared, and an incense offering of fragrant smoke ascended from their pipes, they curl up in their blankets, and sleep as only those who live such a life can sleep, serenely oblivious of the harsh shriek of the owl, the mournful howl of the wolf, or the soft footfall of some prowling beast that breaks in upon the breathless stillness.

Splendid as our forests are at midsummer when the delighted eye roams unweariedly over their billowy expanses of sumptuous verdure, it is in the autumn time that they reach their rarest beauty.

Then for a brief space before they strip themselves of their foliage to stand bare and shivering through the long, cold winter, they change their garb of green into a myriad of hues of gold and flame.

A keen frosty night following upon the decline of summer heat, and lo, as though some mighty magician had been at work, a marvellous transformation awaits our admiration!

Where yesterday a single colour in various tints prevailed, to-day we behold every possible shade of brilliant scarlet, tender violet, sombre brown, vivid crimson, and glittering yellow.

The beech, the birch, the oak, and above all, the maple, have burst forth into one harmonious and entrancing chorus of colour--the swan song of the dying foliage--the stern, straight fir alone maintaining its eternal green, as if it said: "Behold in me the symbol of steadfastness."

Verily, the wide world round, a more splendid and enchanting silvan panorama cannot be found.