Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it.
Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing, collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area of the stump before he would say any thing.

Here we all looked so sadly small that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of the tree; and the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.
The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to do, looked blank.

Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called upon to work.

The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft gray where the lichens grew.
Every body looked at Mr.Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having had lately some trouble with his throat.

Then in his sturdy manner he spoke the truth, according to his nature.