Forests formerly abounded in Europe. In Gallia, Germania, Illyria, Sarmatia, whole provinces were covered with immense woods of ancient and patriarchal trees. Civilization has destroyed them in great part, and often without discernment. At the present day few forests in Europe remain untouched. They are rare in Western Asia, in Central Asia, and in Northern Asia; rarer still in the Chinese empire, where the population is denser than in any other country of the world, and where it is the great object of the policy of the State that not a rood of land shall be lost for the culture of plants valuable as food or for industrial purposes. It is only to the south of the Himalaya Mountains, in the still savage and scantily peopled regions of India and Indo-China, that one sees the great vegetables of the Tropical Zone agglomerated in compact masses of considerable extent. In Africa, forests of any size or density only exist in the mountainous countries and towards the western littoral; as, notably, in the Soudan, the Senegal, in Guinea, at the Gaboon, and on the coasts of Angola and Benguela. In North America, civilization has accomplished, in less than three centuries, the work which in Europe occupied a much longer period. The magnificent forests which spread their awful shades--their vast luxuriance of gloom--over the surface of this continent have fallen before the axe of the pioneer. Only at a few points is realized the fine picture of the poet; only in a few untrodden recesses still flourishes the primeval forest, where-- "The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms."[146]