Therefore smouldering branches were kept always burning, as they are to-day amongst the Fuegians and some other savages. It was a sacred duty to watch this fire, and the woman (usually old) who was entrusted with the task was very probably put to death if she failed. From this very ancient savage custom probably arose the cult of the Vestal Virgins in Ancient Rome.15
Another very important factor in savage life was the canoe or piroque necessary for fishing or to cross lakes and rivers. The first chantey of Rudyard Kipling has a probable theory, and is a beautiful account of how man first thought of using a floating log.16 They hollowed out the log and "dug out" the canoe, by first lighting a fire on it and then scraping away the cinders; then the sides were pressed out, and it was trimmed and straightened to the right shape. All this was the idea of some paleolithic genius far more persevering and ingenious than any marine architect of our own days.
"Birchbark" canoes are not so common as Dug-outs. The tree, the White or Paper Birch, is found in Canada and the Northern United States; those Indians who discovered that the light, waterproof cork-bark could be fashioned into a canoe made a very great discovery, and indeed it was their canoes that made travel or exploration possible in North America.
When man began to long for a settled permanent home, it was absolutely necessary to find a way of living in safety. Wolves, bears, hyenas and other animals were abundant; neighbours of his own or other tribes were more ferocious and more dangerous than wild beasts. Some neolithic genius imagined an artificial island made of logs in the midst of a lake or inaccessible swamp. Such were the lake dwellings which persisted into historic times, and which are indeed still in existence in some parts of the earth.17
The trees were abundant; they could be felled by the help of fire and an axe, and the lake dwelling gave a secure defence. The wood of some of the piles supporting the great villages in Switzerland seems to be still sound, though it has been under water for many centuries. Some villages are said to have required hundreds of thousands of trees.
The forest afforded man almost everything that he used, bows and arrows, shelter, fuel, and even part of his food.
Nuts and fruits would be collected and when possible stored. In seasons of famine, they used even to eat the delicate inside portion of the bark of trees.
But as soon as the first half-civilized men began to keep cattle, sheep, and especially goats, more serious inroads still were made upon the forest. Where such animals are allowed to graze there is no chance for wood to grow (at any rate in a temperate country). The growing trees and the branches of older ones are nibbled away whilst they are young and tender. The days of the forest were nearly over when cultivation commenced. Dr. Henry describes the process of "nomadic" culture in China as follows: "They burn down areas of the forest; gather one or two crops of millet or upland rice from the rich forest soil; and then pass on to another district where they repeat the destruction."18 A very similar process of agriculture existed until the eighteenth century in Scotland.
Thus the forest was being burnt or cleared for cultivation. It was devastated by black cattle, goats, and other animals, and it was regularly exploited for fuel and building every day by every family for centuries.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the ancient forests in Britain have disappeared. Dr. Henry mentions one square mile of virgin forest on the Clonbrock estate in Ireland. The Silva Caledonica of the Romans is said to exist in Scotland at the Blackwood of Rothiemurchus, at Achnacarry, and in a few other places. Of the original oak forest, which covered most of England and Southern Scotland, not a vestige (so far as is known to the writer) remains to-day.
There are in places very ancient forests. A few miles from Retford are considerable remains of Sherwood Forest, which is for ever associated with that genial bandit Robin Hood. One huge oak (called the Major) has or used to have a keeper always on guard and paid by Lord Manvers, but there are hundreds of aged oaks all round it. Then there is the Knightwood Oak and some other ancients in the New Forest.
But it is not certain that these even date so far back as the time of Canute, for so far as the New Forest is concerned, it seems that this was formed either by Canute or by William I. The Saxons seem to have destroyed most of the English forests.
In Scotland oak forest existed as far north as the Island of Lewis, in Caithness, Dornoch, Cromarty, and along Loch Ness, as well as in every county south of these.19 The deer forests and grouse moors, now desolate, whaup-haunted muir-land and peat mosses, were flourishing woods of magnificent Scots fir at no very distant period. They ascended the hills on the Cairngorms to 1400 or 1500 feet, and in Yorkshire to 2400 feet.20
Even in remote historical times, such as those of Canute, the forests had become seriously and dangerously destroyed. This king was apparently the first to artificially protect the woods as a hunting preserve. He was followed by William the Conqueror and other sovereigns. The game preserves of the landed proprietors to-day are, of course, the remains of the same custom.
Fortunately, however, we do not kill poachers or cut off their right hands, and we do not cut off the forepaws of poaching dogs, as used to be done in medieval days.
This connexion of forests with game no doubt prevented the entire disappearance of wood, but when, as is the case in England, the comfort of pheasants is thought of more importance than the scientific cultivation of forests, the result is often very unfortunate.
The use and value of timber is, however, too important a matter to take up at the end of a chapter.
CHAPTER IV
ON FORESTS
The forests of the Coal Age – Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo – Wood, its uses, colour, and smell – Lasting properties of wood – Jarrah and deodar – Teak – Uses of birch – Norwegian barques – Destruction of wood in America – Paper from wood pulp – Forest fires – Arid lands once fertile – Britain to be again covered by forests – Vanished country homes – Ashes at farmhouses – Yews in churchyards – History of Man versus Woods in Britain.
WHAT was the first tree like? That is a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps the first forests were those of the great coal period, of which the remains, buried for untold ages in the earth, became the coal which we now burn.
The flames and red-glowing heat of a fire are the work of the sunlight which fell in these long-past ages through a steamy, misty atmosphere, upon these weird, grotesque vegetables, unlike anything which now exists upon the earth. Their nearest allies amongst living plants are the little club-mosses which creep over the peat and through the heather in alpine districts.
Of course no one can say exactly what these coal forests were like. But although some modern authorities have questioned the general accuracy of the descriptions of Heer and others, yet, as they have not given anything better in the way of description, we shall endeavour to describe them according to our own beliefs, and as they probably existed in the Lanarkshire coalfield and other places in Britain.
In that gloomy mirk of the Carboniferous epoch, an observer (if there had been any) would have dimly perceived huge trunks rising to sixty or