midday
Why there should have been rich earth here and none in the ditch is more than we could guess , but perhaps the presence of springs of water in this part of the mount may have been a cause . At any rate it was so . The trees in this forest were huge and of a variety of cedar , but did not grow closely together ; also there was practically no undergrowth , perhaps for the reason that their dense , spreading tops shut out the light . As I saw afterwards both trunks and boughs were clothed with long grey moss , which even at midday gave the place a very ghostly appearance . The darkness beneath those trees was intense , literally we could not see an inch before our faces . Yet rather than stand still we struggled on , Hans leading the way , for his instincts were quicker than ours . The steep rise of the ground beneath our feet told us that we were going uphill , as we wished to do , and from time to time I consulted a pocket compass I carried by the light of a match , knowing from previous observations that the top of the Holy Mount lay due north .