BOOK I - PRINCE ERRANT





CHAPTER I - IN WHICH THE PRINCE DEPARTS ON AN ADVENTURE


You shall seek in vain upon the map of Europe for the bygone state
of Grunewald. An independent principality, an infinitesimal member
of the German Empire, she played, for several centuries, her part in
the discord of Europe; and, at last, in the ripeness of time and at
the spiriting of several bald diplomatists, vanished like a morning
ghost. Less fortunate than Poland, she left not a regret behind
her; and the very memory of her boundaries has faded.

It was a patch of hilly country covered with thick wood. Many
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