Picture to yourself a forest in the Hartz hanging on to the sides
of the mountain, but a forest swallowed up. The paths were
encumbered with seaweed and fucus, between which grovelled
a whole world of crustacea. I went along, climbing the rocks,
striding over extended trunks, breaking the sea bind-weed which hung
from one tree to the other; and frightening the fishes, which flew
from branch to branch. Pressing onward, I felt no fatigue.
I followed my guide, who was never tired. What a spectacle!
How can I express it? how paint the aspect of those woods and
rocks in this medium--their under parts dark and wild, the upper
coloured with red tints, by that light which the reflecting powers
of the waters doubled? We climbed rocks which fell directly
after with gigantic bounds and the low growling of an avalanche.
To right and left ran long, dark galleries, where sight was lost.
Here opened vast glades which the hand of man seemed to have worked;
and I sometimes asked myself if some inhabitant of these submarine
regions would not suddenly appear to me.
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