Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/328

292 reaches to the knee or higher, that to crawl through a few yards of this vegetation is a task accompanied with more fatigue, pain, and tardiness of progress than the traveller suffers when traversing loose sand, earth scorched by the sun, or deep snow. No amount of force can tear a way: fishermen's boots alone afford protection against the spiny branches, which threaten to stake the pedestrian, as he sinks, at each step, among the boughs. Here, the length of limb, that proved an inconvenience when crawling among the low trees, becomes very advantageous. On approaching the utmost limit of the forest, the matting grows more and more impervious; and it seems hopeless to attempt proceeding. But suddenly a facility is afforded: the trees, which lower down were of a girth of fifteen feet, grow so closely at this elevation, that the traveller, instead of walking under their shade, can tread upon their topmost branches.

"Above this, the wood gradually opens out into a moorland tract, remarkable for the absence of Grasses and the abundance of Lichens. Here and there a mountain tarn diversifies the surface: deep, black, quiet pools fill the depressions; their surface presenting no water-herb, and only a few submerged Mosses and Confervæ at the bottom. Though this region is barren to the eye, it is rich in alpine plants, which are all of a tufted and mossy habit. A few, as Caltha, Astelia, Forstera, and Donatia, form broad bright green patches; but the majority are of a greyer hue. The Empetrum,