Excerpt from Rambles in the Black Forest Black Forest is, I am afraid, not altogether as familiar to our English travelling public as it deserves to be. The Black Forest historian, Dr. Bader - writing, it is true, some decennia ago - complains that we are disposed to look upon his country as genuine backwood, and to picture to ourselves its inhabitants as real, wild savages. That holds good, of course, no longer. Nevertheless, to but too many among us the Forest is still something like a Hercynian wild - credited, indeed, with natural attractions, but not magnetic enough, in its supposed sameness of silvan scenery, or its roughness of accommodation, to make those attractions effective. We travel past it - shoals of us do - every year. Trains, closely packed, run by it, carrying our migrating flock of human sheep to those recognized Alpine pastures, to which accepted bell-wethers still lead them - on which, amid familiar surroundings to eye and ear - English faces, English newspapers, English advertisements, and English speech of various accents - travellers may "change their sky" though in truth they change little else. Good speed to them on their journey! I have nothing to say against their choice. But is there not some virtue still in that old schoolboy proverb - variatio delectat? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.