Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/180

170 In the afternoon I went on hore, accompanied by the gardener and two others of our hip's company, in order to make an excurion into the country towards N.E. We were filled with admiration at the ight of thee ancient forets, in which the ound of the axe had never been heard. The eye was atonihed in contemplating the prodigious ize of thee trees, amongt which there were ome myrtles more than 25 fathoms in height, whoe tufted ummits were crowned with an ever verdant foliage: others, looened by age from their roots, were upported by the neighbouring trees, whilt, as they gradually decayed, they were incorporated piece after piece with the parent-earth. The mot luxuriant vigour of vegetation is here contrated with its final diolution, and preents to the mind a triking picture of the operations of nature, who, left to herelf, never detroys but that he may again create.

The trees in this foret did not grow o cloe together as to prevent us from penetrating into it. We walked for a long time over ground, where the water, impeded in its coure, has formed itelf into marhes, the borders of which we examined. Deeper within the foret, we found mall rivulets that contained very good water. Almot every where the oil conited of a very fine mould, produced by the decay of vegetables, over a bed of