streams took their beginning in the glens of Grunewald, turning

mills for the inhabitants. There was one town, Mittwalden, and many

brown, wooden hamlets, climbing roof above roof, along the steep

bottom of dells, and communicating by covered bridges over the

larger of the torrents. The hum of watermills, the splash of

running water, the clean odour of pine sawdust, the sound and smell

of the pleasant wind among the innumerable army of the mountain

pines, the dropping fire of huntsmen, the dull stroke of the wood-

axe, intolerable roads, fresh trout for supper in the clean bare

chamber of an inn, and the song of birds and the music of the

village-bells - these were the recollections of the Grunewald

tourist.

North and east the foothills of Grunewald sank with varying profile

into a vast plain. On these sides many small states bordered with

the principality, Gerolstein, an extinct grand duchy, among the

number. On the south it marched with the comparatively powerful

kingdom of Seaboard Bohemia, celebrated for its flowers and mountain

bears, and inhabited by a people of singular simplicity and

tenderness of heart. Several intermarriages had, in the course of

centuries, united the crowned families of Grunewald and Maritime

Bohemia; and the last Prince of Grunewald, whose history I purpose

to relate, drew his descent through Perdita, the only daughter of

King Florizel the First of Bohemia. That these intermarriages had

in some degree mitigated the rough, manly stock of the first

Grunewalds, was an opinion widely held within the borders of the

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>