Translation:The High Mountains/65

While the Engineer was saying all this, they had entered into the forest. First of all, they walked for a long time among the pines; then, as they were moving higher, they came to the fir trees straight and flexible.

“Up higher still, said the Engineer, there is a forest of beech trees; but now we're going to stop here at the saw. We've arrived”.

The hydraulic saw worked like a mill. Water fell from a pipe and by its own power it displaced a big straight saw. All the trunks which the woodcutters cut in the forest were brought here. The saw cut them and made lumber: planks, sleepers, beams.

What a large quantity of wood there was here! It had been stacked in great piles; continually the saw cut and continually the woodcutters brought more.

A small branch comes out of the ground and in forty, fifty years, it give these great beams.

What good things all this wood gives to men! We make houses out of it, boats, churches, bridges. We make cars out of it, furniture, boxes, barrels, oars, baskets, books.

With this wood we make thousands of things, heavy and light, from the biggest to the smallest; from the boat mast to tiny wooden spikes to staple our shoes.

That's what the sun and rain produce! That's what gives us the forest!

“Come and see how we transport the wood”, said the Engineer.

They went to the edge to look down at the bottom of the precipice. There they saw the Roumelle. At this point the Roumelle had a lot of water because it came directly from its springs, without having dispersed water anywhere else.

They all greeted it raising their hands: “Hallo, Roumelle! You're always near us!”

From the summit where they were, down to the water below, the woodcutters swung the trunks and the rafters and everything slipped over the rock face and slid down with the momentum to the river.

On the river, once more, the woodcutters recovered them. They threw them into the middle and then guided them along in the water by following them on the bank. When they blocked on some stone or other or when there was too many logs, the woodcutters helped them to move further on.

In this way the Roumelle carried them to the low plain, where it then became a wide river. And from there still slowly it carried them to the sea. There they were recovered and taken to the factory.

“From here the mountain goes to the beach” said the Engineer to the children.

The wood that the woodcutters were sending this time towards the river would be used for a boat. There were different types: pine, oak, beech.

As well as this wood for the boat, they took down two very long fir trunks by another way, attached behind mules. These were the masts.

The children were filled with a desire in seeing this scene. It brought to mind the waves and the trips they'd heard talked about, and they wanted to set off on the high seas...

Andreas and Phanis remembered the sea they had seen under the great sun.

Just then, the chief woodcutter's mother, a very old woman who couldn't see any more, seated on a stone, sang these few words for the new ship...