Being extremely dense, and impervious to worms, it is very durable.
Emerging from the forest, when half-way down the hillside, we came upon an open space, covered with ferns and grass, over which a few lonely trees were casting long shadows in the setting sun.

Here, a piece of ground some hundred feet square, covered with weeds and brambles, and sounding hollow to the tread, was inclosed by a ruinous wall of stones.

Tonoi said it was an almost forgotten burial-place, of great antiquity, where no one had been interred since the islanders had been Christians.

Sealed up in dry, deep vaults, many a dead heathen was lying here.
Curious to prove the old man's statement, I was anxious to get a peep at the catacombs; but hermetically overgrown with vegetation as they were, no aperture was visible.
Before gaining the level of the valley, we passed by the site of a village, near a watercourse, long since deserted.

There was nothing but stone walls, and rude dismantled foundations of houses, constructed of the same material.