Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-21
ROCKS THAT CHATTER
One of Lillian Spencer's Discoveries
on Her European Tramp.
CAVERS THAT SUGGEST GHOSTS.
Belgium is the Best Place to Walk of q
Case Of Dyspepsia.
A BADtNIGHT IN A RAILWAY STATION
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE p1srArcH.,

walk through Europe at rate of 15 miles
a day.
Try it and seel
The best month to start out on such tour
is August. Pittsburgers would do we'll to
take vessel at Philadelphia. 1t is nearer
than New York and the rate of passage
cheaper. Very good accommodations can
be had on almost any of the lines for $50.
1t takes 10 or IL days to make the voyage,
it is true. but the rest and the sea is what
the dyspeptic most requires. It builds up
his system and fortifes him for the walk to
follow. do not believe one could find
more beautiful country for a pedestrian tour
than Belgium. The climate is perfect
mild, clear, fresh, invigorating. The roads
are like white marble; the trees lend
a shady shelter and the peasants
are universally kind and polite.
After the first week or SO one loses all
sense of fatigue. The stiffness of the joints
seem to relax, and the machinery OF the
body once in working order, there are no
bitches. 1t is very important in walking to
hx the mind on some interesting or agree
able subject. Never for a single moment let
it dwell on the length of the road or the
number of kilometers marked on the mile
posts. If you imagine you are tired, you
are tired. If you decide that you can't go
any further-you can't.
OCCUPYING THE MIND.
The best way is to plot out novel, or
play, or compose a poem. Conversation is
apt to become an effort and prove wearisome.
A hundred subjects will suggest themselves
as you stroll along. You have only to turn
to the right to see the towers of an old castle
crowning distant hill, castle, grim and
dark and forbidding, with draw-bridge and
embattled towers and moss-grown turrets.
And when you consult your guide-book you
learn that it was formerly the dwelling
place OF fierce and blood-thirsty baron,
who sacked all the neighboring towns and
loaded the prisoners with chains, and not
being able to put them to death fast enough
dropped them over the rocks and hung them
by the feet out OF the narrow stone windows.
What more easy than to give this monster
fair and charming daughter, whose gentle
heart bled with anguish at her dread
fathers crimes! And why not put IN
gallant lover, a sort of plumed knight, with
clanking sword and coat of mail, and noble
palfry-and dwarf, a hideous hunchbaek
who inhabits the caverns OF the gigantic
rocks hanging overhead. And, touching
those self same rocks, let me say, they are
no laughing matter. don't believe in
ghosts except when I am attending one of
Mrs. Bliss seances, and then 1t would be
bad form to doubt that the shadowy figures,
dancing minuets and singing Academy of
Music lullabys. are not creatures from
another-part of the State; but these rocks,
which stretch for a quarter of mile along
the road from Namur to Dave, on the way
to Dinant, the Saratoga of Belgium, are
very curious rocks to say the least.
THE ROCKS THAT TALK.
They don't behave themselves as we'll
ordered, hoary-headed old rocks should.
They lack dignity; they are too noisy, too
communicative. They hate to hear them
selves talk. Yes, talk. Those rocks talk.
comparison. You saunter along the banks
of loveliest of all lovely rivers, the Meuse-
spanned here and there by rude stone bridges
and rejecting every leaf and tree and hill.
You saunter along, marveling at the won
drous coloring OF the foliage shading from
green to gold, the misty purple OF the dis
tant mountains fading away into the pearl
OF the clouds, and suddenly, expectedly,
you are confronted with huge barrier of
crags, banked up against the very sky.
And lost in the wonder of the colossal
pile you stop abruptly and then feeling of
awe creeps over you and your pulses
quicken. No human habitation is in sight.
The place is isolated, solitary, only the forest
and the mountains and the river are ABOUT,
and yet-at first you think it is trick of
fancy or of the Imagination or the hearing,
but by and by it dawns upon you that it is
not and that you are really listening to the
voices of a great multitude of people. But
where is the multitude? Where are the
people? You look anxiously, expectantly
about you. No one is near. The silence is
MID If1a hat
voices come from the rocks-the depths, the
inmost depths of the rocks.
NO DOUBT REMAINS.
Are they the voices of human beings?
Apparently. They sound loud and shrill.
1t is impossible to catch the meaning of
what they are saying, but it is out Of the
question to doubt that they are there. Are
they underground folk or elves or pigmies
or giants or
Lets get away" says Mimi, shivering.
Nonsense, let's investigate" and 1
plunge into my BaedeSer. lie does not
mention the phenomenon.
"Baedeker never missed a point in his
life, whispers Minnie, turning as pale as
the sunburn on her face will permit. 'If
the voices were ever heard before, he would
have heard them. Do let's get away"
And we get away as fast as we can, to-
ward Dave, a picturesque little hamlet
nesting among the hills and having jolly
good time all to Itself, but calling out to
strangers: 'No adnittance," and meaning
just what it says. Inhospitable, unpro6t-
able Dave. We were tagged out when we
walked in under the stone archway of your
gates, and we would have been so grateful
to have rested in the shade Of your green
banks sloping to the rivers edge and losing
themselves beneath the sparkling ripples
But you would not have it. No, even at 8
francs apiece. Perhaps, if you had known
we were going to roast you in the news
papers, you would have thought better of
the matter. Oh, yes, of course you had no
use for transients. We knew that. But we
wanted to stay, and we couldn't. And
women are perverse. They never cease to
regret that which is denied them.
NIGHT IN A STATION.
I have slept in hard beds before now and
have put up in some queer hotels-in Texas.
On one occasion l passed a night in a
caboose, but that should ever come down
to sleeping in railway station passes belief.
1--WE know what we are, but we know not
what-we may come to-" That's true. We
don't. A Belgium railway station in the
Provinces is somewhat like the railway sta
tions in the remote Southern towns in Amer
lea, where the train comes along once day
and waits an hour or so for the convenience
of those passengers who have oversight
themselves. 1t differs, however, in one re-
spect-it is locked at sundowp, and nothing
less than substantial bribe to the depart
ing guard, who goes 10 bed with the chick
ems, will induce him 20 open 1t and lock you
in. burn alive in case of a fire, or drown
like rat in the event of flood