So dense was this forest that twilight seemed to have come.
Travel was arduous.

Everywhere were windfalls that had to be avoided, and not a rod was there without a fallen tree.

The horses, laboring slowly, sometimes sank knee-deep into the brown duff.

Gray moss festooned the tree-trunks and an amber-green moss grew thick on the rotting logs.
Helen loved this forest primeval.

It was so still, so dark, so gloomy, so full of shadows and shade, and a dank smell of rotting wood, and sweet fragrance of spruce.