You will certainly never in your life have heard of a village called Rattelsdorf?  We have been in it already twenty-four hours, and who knows if we shall not have to stay four times as long!  It depends on the Maine, whether it falls or not; as it is now, one could not cross it, even if one dared to.  I have never in my life met with so many hindrances, so many dangers and hardships, as on this journey.  I can hardly think of any misfortunes which we have not already had.

She goes on to describe that in thirty-eight hours two axles and two poles had been broken, the horses had bolted with them, one horse had fallen and died, and so on; on March 2nd they were still prisoners in the wretched village.

In 1750 a day’s journey was still reckoned at five miles, two hours to the mile; and when in July 1750 Klopstock travelled with Gleim from Halberstadt to Magdeburg in a light carriage drawn by four horses, at the rate of six miles in six hours, he thought this speed remarkable enough to merit comparison with the racing in the Olympian games.  People of any pretensions shunned the discomforts of travelling on foot—­the bad roads, the insecurity, the dirty inns, and the rough treatment in them; to walk abroad in good clothes and admire the scenery was an unknown thing. (G.  Freytag.)

It was only after the widening of thoroughfares, the invention of steamboats (the first was on the Weser 1827) and railways (1835), that travelling became commoner and more popular, and feeling for Nature was thereby increased.

After the Swiss Alps had been discovered for them, people began to feel interest in their native mountains; Zimmermann led the way with his observations on a journey in the Harz 1775, and Gatterer in 1785 published A Guide to Travelling in the Harz in five volumes.

In 1806 appeared Nicolas’s Guide to Switzerland, in 1777 J.T.  Volkmar’s Journey to the Riesengebirge, and before long each little country and province, be it Weimar, Mecklenburg, or the Mark, had discovered a Switzerland within its own boundaries, with mountains as much like the Swiss Alps as a charming little girl is like a giant.

It was the opening of men’s eyes to the charms of romantic scenery at home.

The Isle of Ruegen too, Swedish at that time, with its striking contrasts of deep blue bays and inlets, chalk rocks and beech woods, came into fashion with lovers of Nature, especially after the road from Sagard to Stubbenkamer had been improved[17]—­so much so, in fact, that in 1805 Gruembke was complaining that many people only went there to feast, not to enjoy the scene: