Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/35

Rh here and there a tree sometimes resembles the oaks, as if with long living amongst them, it had learnt to grow like them. The finest beech-wood is that of Mark Ash. There you may see true beech-forms, the boles spangled with silver scales of lichen, and the roots—more fangs than roots—grasping the earth, feathered with the soft green down of moss.

But not in individual trees lies the beauty of the Forest, but in the masses of wood. There, in the long aisles, settles that depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round each tree-trunk.

Let no one, however, think they know anything of the Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. They must go into it, across the fern and the heather, and, if necessary, over the swamps, into such old woods as Barrow's Moor, Mark Ash, Bushey Bratley, and Oakley, wandering at their own will among the trees. The best advice which I can give to see the Forest is to follow the course of one of its streams, to make it your friend and companion, and go whereever it goes. It will be sure to take you through the greenest valleys, and past the thickest woods, and under the largest trees. No step along with it is ever lost, for if never goes out of its way but in search of some fresh beauty.

We see plenty of pictures in our Exhibitions from Burnham Beeches or Epping Forest, but in the New Forest the artist will find not only woodland, but sea, and moorland, and river views. There are, as I have said, when taken in details, more beautiful spots in England, but none so characteristic. Finer trees, wilder moors, higher hills, more swiftly-flowing brooks, may be found, but nowhere that quietness so typical of English 17