In forests of this kind, the undergrowth of brushwood of every variety is exceedingly abundant and beautiful: every woodland shrub is to be found there--the hazel especially--and the thickets thereby formed are quite impenetrable. As the older and larger trees decay, they lose their footing in the soil, and fall in every variety of strange position--presenting a picture of desolation, the effect of which is at first strange to the mind, and at last becomes even painful. But wherever a tree falls, there a luxuriant growth of moss succeeds: a little peat-bed forms itself underneath: generations after generations of mosses and watery plants succeed one another; and in time the prostrate trunk is entirely buried under a bright-green bed, soft as down, but treacherous to the foot as a quicksand. Often may the wanderer amid these wild glades think to throw himself on one of these inviting couches; and, bounding on to it, he sinks five or six feet through moss and weed and dirty peat, till his descent is stopped by the skeleton of the vast tree that lies beneath. Wild flowers grow all around: and every spot of ground that will produce them is covered in the summer season with the tempting little red strawberry, or the wild raspberry, or the blushing rose. Above all, still keep peering, in solemn and interminable array, the vast monarchs of the wood, the stately and elegant silver-firs. When you attempt to leave the forests and advance towards the upper grounds, you commonly find yourself stopped by a precipitous wall of basaltic columns, ranging from sixty to seventy feet in height in one unbroken shaft, and forming a vast barrier for miles and miles in length. In some places, these gray basaltic walls come circling round, and constitute an immense natural theatre, sombre and grand as the forest itself. No sound is there heard save the dashing of a distant cascade, or the wind in deep symphony rushing through the slow-waving tops of the trees. Below is a carpet of the most lively green, variegated with turfs of wild flowers and fruits--one of nature's secret, yet choicest gardens. Through the midst trickles a silvery stream, coming you know not whence, but musical in its course, and soon losing itself in the thick underwood that borders the spot all around. Such is the Salle de Mirabeau--one of the loveliest of the many lovely hiding-places of these sublime forests.