The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-10

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 numerable bypaths wandering
 off here and there and meander- A ing through powered hooks and snady dells, by placid lakes and lifting streams. Happy is the individual who can find the opportunity to occasionally forsake the main thoroughfare and loiter at will along the shy ways and hidden trails that proffer their alluring retreats.
 What is true of the simile is true in the actual experiences of mortals and the traveller abroad experiences no great CT pleasure than that which is his when he leaves the beaten track of the tourist and journeys among the hamlets and arcadian spots of the land.
 My readers have traversed with me Sd many thousand miles of the Kings high way that I am going to ask them to ac- company me now in ramble to the de- lectable spots of nature. spots associated with romance and legend and spots seem- ingly designed for dreaming, as they evoke all of the romance that can find lodge ment in the most dormant of souls. It is. of course, necessary and entertaining to travel the highways, as there one gains knowledge and edification. but when one
  of that knowledge greater is the pleasure whep he tarries in an out-of-the-way resort to remove those travel stains
 cannot too strongly emphasize the fact that for unalloyed joy one must know before hand that which he is to see, as a previous acquaintance with the legends, the history and the associations Of the object of his visit intensifies an hundredfold the pleasure of the Vlslt. To be sure there are some localities which possess but little individual charm apart from that which they have bor- rowed from association and when within their purleus one has to draw consider ably upon his imagination and love or romance to reap an adequate reward for the troubl. and pains expended i'll making the visit. Such a place in point is Bingen What traveller down the Rhine has not rushed in eager excitement to the rail of his steamboat to catch his first glipmse of that little town which was the birth place of the Soldier of the Legion who lay dying in Alsers?' Ard yet Bingen is an extremely ordinary place. and is surpassed in scenic beauty by hundred other localities that boffE the entrancing Rhine. Here 1t is the imagination that is brought into play and romance alone furnishes the pleasure of the visit.
 But Bingen is not so far out of the way. Hundreds of thousands of tourists view it annually even if they do not stop there, and it is not one of the spots to which we are going today.
 To be clothed with historical associa- tions, especially when those associations are relics of the mediaeval times. the re- spective localities must have figured in action to so figure requires strength and .virility and in olden times the engine Of that strength was a castle; consequently nearly every hamlet and town of renown in Europe is possessed of a castle or the ruins of such stronghold The castle in addition to being the means of defense was always likewise a residence either Of royalty or some member of the nobility, and the name of such residence varies, according to the country in which It IS located. Thus the plain English castle becomes in France a chateau, in Ger many it Is known schloss and in Scandinavia a slott. while Spain calls it by the euphonious title of alcazar. But no matter by what name we know It the castle. which the Britons in Arthur's day dubbed guard, is generally the spirit of the locality, the mirror of past glory and the rendezvous of the ghosts of those who fashioned it's prowess and gave it legended prestige
 It is in France and Germany that a majority or these iengthened shadows of the man exist In Germany most of stream, crown the acropolis of some walled city or perch upon the rocky crest of some towering and isolated mountain. In France more of them are found in country villages. upon the