disposed as to answer the purpose of a palisade; and this purpose they
answer most effectually, not only from the great size and strength of
the trees themselves, but also from the intervening spaces between
them being filled up with strong and impassable underwood [10].

[Footnote 10: A tract of about 150 miles square, at the mouth and
on the southern bank of the Loire, comprehends the scene of those
deplorable hostilities. The most inland part of the district, and that
in which the insurrection first broke out, is called _Le Bocage_; and
seems to have been almost as singular in its physical conformation,
as in the state and condition of its population. A series of detached
eminences, of no great elevation, rose over the whole face of the
country, with little rills trickling in the hollows and occasional
cliffs by their sides. The whole space was divided into small
enclosures, each surrounded with tall wild hedges, and rows of pollard
trees; so that though there were few large woods, the whole region
had a sylvan and impenetrable appearance. The ground was mostly in
pasturage; and the landscape had, for the most part, an aspect of
wild verdure, except that in the autumn some patches of yellow corn
appeared here and there athwart their green enclosures. Only two great
roads traversed this sequestered region, running nearly parallel, at
a distance of more than seventy miles from each other. In the
intermediate space, there was nothing but a labyrinth of wild and
devious paths, crossing each other at the extremity of almost every
field--often serving, at the same time, as channels for the winter
torrents, and winding so capriciously among the innumerable hillocks,
and beneath the meeting hedge-rows, that the natives themselves were
always in danger of losing their way when they went a league or
two from their own habitations. The country, though rather thickly
peopled, contained, as may be supposed, few large towns; and the