In Wildest Africa ^ 



do so if, say, only cotton-pods grew on the vines ! In 

 ancient times, as Humboldt shows, with the Oreeks and 

 Romans, as a rule, only country that was '' comfortable 

 to live in " was called beautiful, not what was wild and 

 romantic. Yet Propertius ^ and many others praise the 

 beauty of nature left to itself, in contrast with that which 

 is embellished by art. Then we have a long way to 

 travel through the Middle Ages, when the Alps are 

 described to us as "dismal " and " horrible," till we come 

 to the nature-studies of Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. 

 At first there were very few to sympathise with them. 

 Their view gradually prevailed, in spite of many backward 

 eddies. Thus Hegel had only one impression of the 

 Swiss Alps, that of a performance tiresome on account 

 of its length — a judgment not far removed from that 

 of the Savoyard peasant who declared that people who 

 took any interest in snow-covered mountains must be 

 insane. 



On the other hand, we find in Eastern Asia, and 

 especially among the Japanese, from the earliest times, 

 the most ardent love for nature, and there even the poorest 

 knows how to adorn his home with flowers, and to turn 

 the beauty of the landscape to similar account. 



A great part of the interest felt in natural beauty is 

 perhaps to be traced to extraneous considerations. On 

 the other hand, here in Germany we see most of our 

 people full of feeling for our glorious forests and for 

 our German scenery in general. We have to face the 

 prospect, however, of a silenced countryside — a countryside 

 ^ Cf. Friedlander, Darstelhingen aus der Sittengeschichte Bonis. 



I02 



