by degrees encircling the Island, whilst the chalk cliffs melt into clouds. On it still steals with its thick mist, quenching the Needles Light which has been lit, till the whole island is capped with fog, and neither sea nor sky are seen,—nothing but a dense haze blotting everything. Then suddenly the wind lifts the great cloud westward, and its black curtains drop away, revealing a sky of the deepest blue, barred with lines of light: and the whole bay suddenly shines out clear and glittering, the Island cliffs flashing with opal and emerald, and the ship once more glides out safe from the darkness.
A few words, too, must be said about the two principal tree-forms which now make the Forest. The oaks here do not grow so high or so large as in many other parts of England, but they are far finer in their outlines, hanging in the distance as if rather suspended in the air than growing from the earth, but nearer, as especially at Bramble Hill, twisting their long arms, and interlacing each other into a thick roof. Now and then they take to straggling ways, running out, as with the famous Knyghtwood Oak, into mere awkward forks. The most striking are not, perhaps, so much those in their prime, as the old ruined trees at Boldrewood, their bark furrowed with age, their timber quite decayed, now only braced together by the clamps of ivy to which they once gave support and strength.[1]
The beeches are even finer, and more characteristic, though
- ↑ The following measurements may have, perhaps, an interest for some readers:—Girth of the Knyghtwood oak, 17 ft. 4 in.; of the Western oak at Boldrewood, 24 ft. 9 in.; the Eastern, 16 ft.; and the Northern, in the thickest part, 20 ft. 4 in.; though, lower down, only 14 ft. 8 in.; beech at Studley, 21 ft.; beech at Holmy Ridge, 20 ft. The handsomest oak, however, in the district, stands a few yards outside the Forest boundary, close to Moyle's Court, measuring 18 ft. 8½ in.
