The two features of nature in which her might, her majesty, her mystery, find fullest expression, are the ocean and the forest. Regarding their vastness and their unchanging character, in our weak endeavour to find terms for the infinite we have made them symbols of eternity. Irresistible, perennial is the fascination they possess for man, and all-satisfying the measure with which they respond to his demands. On ocean’s bosom or in the forest’s heart he finds free play for his noblest qualities. In making them subservient to his will he has achieved his grandest development. Nowhere round the globe are the forests finer than on this continent of ours. Boundless in extent and endless in diversity, the eye never wearies of resting upon them or seeking to penetrate their depths. Happily free as they are from the dense matted undergrowth that makes progress through the forests of the tropics a continuous penitential pilgrimage, they present glorious vistas of silvan shade, shot through with golden shafts of sunlight, down which you may wander at your ease in unchecked communion with nature. By way of comparison just place these two pictures side by side. Seeking to give some conception of the interminable Congo forest, in which he spent so many months of misery, Stanley exclaims: "Take a thick Scottish copse dripping with rain; imagine this copse to be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable shade of ancient trees, ranging from one hundred feet to one hundred and eighty feet high; briers and thorns abundant; lazy creeks meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river. Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and growth—old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen prostrate: ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, and colours murmuring around; monkeys and chimpanzees above, queer noises of birds and animals, crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants rush away; rain pattering down on you every other day in the year; an impure atmosphere, with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery, gloom throughout the day and darkness almost palpable throughout the night."