For two days

For two days they struggled through putrid, mosquito infected swamps of brackish water, broken through by occasional channels, before they reached the mainland. Scrub oak and hornbeam quickly led to the cool, welcome shade of parkland oak woods. They passed through an almost pure stand of beech, relieved by a few chestnut, and into a mixed forest dominated by oak, but including boxwood and yew, draped with clinging ivy and clematis. The lianas thinned out, but still climbed an occasional tree when they reached a belt of fir and spruce intermixed with beech, maple and hornbeam. The western part was the wettest of the entire range, and carried a dense cover of forests, and the lowest snowline.
They caught glimpses of forest bison and the red deer, roe deer and elk of wooden landscapes; they saw boar, fox, badger, wolf, lynx, leopard, wildcat and many smaller animals, but not a single squirrel