mountains, rivers and plains, is hardly more varied than this vast area
of rock and woodland. We can choose between sites, savage or idyllic,
pastoral or grandiose, here finding a sunny glade, the very spot for a
picnic, there break-neck declivities and gloomy chasms. The magnificent
ruggedness of Alpine scenery is before our eyes, without the awfulness
of snow-clad peaks or the blinding dazzle of glacier. In more than one
place we could almost fancy that some mountain has been upheaved and
split asunder, the clefts formed by these gigantic fragments being now
filled with veteran trees.

The formation of the forest has puzzled geologists, to this day the
origin of its rocky substratum remaining undetermined.

Within half an hour's stroll of Bourron lies the so-called "Mare aux
Fees" or Fairies' Mere, as sweet a spot to boil one's kettle in as
holiday makers can desire, at the same time affording the best possible
illustration of what I have just insisted upon. For this favourite
resort is in a certain sense microcosmic, giving in miniature those
characteristics for which the forest is remarkable. Smooth and sunny as
a garden plot is the open glade wherein we now halt for tea, and while
the kettle boils we have time for a most suggestive bird's eye view. It
is a little world that we survey from the borders of this rock-hemmed,
forest-girt lake, one perspective after another with varying gradations
of colour making us realize the many-featured, chequered area spread
before us. From this coign of vantage are discerned alike the sterner
and the more smiling beauties of the forest, rocky defiles, gloomy
passes, sunlit lawns and mossy dells, scenery varied in itself and yet
varying again with the passing hour and changing month. And such
suggestion of almost infinite variety is not gained only from the
Fairies' Mere. From a dozen points, not the same view but the same kind