The Argosy — page 64: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

In the Black Forest. 51 We left Hausen to its repose, and went on our way. Soon we passed through Zell, a small, old-fashioned, out-of-the-world spot, with a few tall chimnies and iron works. I thought I had done well to leave the train at Schopfheim and secure a carriage (such a carriage, too!) at the Three Kings. Here, in the valley of the Wiesen, we. found ourselves very much amongst the mountains. ‘To the left ram the narrow, shallow babbling stream. The road now presented! the usual Black Forest features. Sloping hills breaking into chains ;. dark pine woods; well made but desolate roads; few signs of life, except occasional wayside inns or houses. When night was beginning to- fall, the mountains closed in and the valley narrowed. ‘The stream rushed on more turbulently, as if angry at having its space con- tracted ; the scene grew somewhat wild and grand; two or three houses opened up, with windows already lighted, as if to greet us; yet a little further, and Schonau, reposing in a hollow and surrounded by mountains, was reached. The inn was primitive, but the landlord was intelligent, and spoke excellent French—a somewhat rare occurrence in the more remote spots of the Black Forest. I gathered from his conversation that he had been born to better things. ‘The rooms were large and well furnished, and it was all much better than could have been expected up amongst the mountains. For it seemed very much out of the world indeed. Yet it was so. beautifully situated, with all the surrounding hills sloping about— under the very shadow of the great Belchen itself—that I felt one could be happy here for a whole week, exploring the neighbourhood. It abounds in mountain excursions ; in walks where hour after hour you may lose yourself in the woods in mazes of wild tangle, flowers and briar ; in paths and roads untrodden by the ordinary tourist, and de- lightfully secluded, where the sense of freedom and beauty is revelled in to the very utmost. For it is something to wander out of the beaten track. You gain, in a minor degree, that feeling of explora- tion, of separation from the world and mankind, from the postman and the immediate neighbour, that must form one of the great charms of the prairies of the New World. In the twilight I wandered up amongst the mountains, which looked so desolate they might have led to the ends of the earth. Down a mountain path there came a cluster of young men and women, returning from their day’s work, singing choruses that made the hills ring again to the echo. ‘The gathering gloom warned me that I also should do well to return. It would be no hard matter to miss one’s way up here; anda night in the mountain would be neither comfortable nor agreeable. Schonau itself is a small but not altogether unimportant place. Wandering about it that night, the streets totally unlighted, it looked weird and uncanny. Some of the thoroughfares were composed entirely of cottages, that, in the darkness, seemed black and broken CONnNICLOOOKS.EO mn