CHAPTER I.
The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts
of sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable
depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of the
redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull red
of their cast-off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed to hold
a faint glow of the dying day. But even this soon passed. Light and
color fled upwards. The dark interlaced treetops, that had all day made
an impenetrable shade, broke into fire here and there; their lost spires
glittered, faded, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come
from the outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and
possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like
columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge
length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange
breath that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture;
a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their barkstrewn
floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees enormous
mummies; the silence the solitude of a forgotten past.