IRature IRotes : 
^Ebe Selbovue Society’s fH>aGa3ine. 
No. 83. NOVEMBER, 1896. Vol. VII. 
THE PLEASURES OF RAMBLES. 
HOEVER wishes to acquire an exact knowledge of any 
district or country in which he may take an interest, 
will soon find that the very best of all means is to 
traverse it on foot. He may then walk as fast or as 
slow as he likes, ramble just as far as he likes, rest or ponder to 
observe when he likes, and altogether take his easeful delight 
in the best of all imaginable ways. Above all, he may leave 
the beaten highway, as he will be ready pretty soon to do, and 
ramble along those green lanes and fieldpaths which are, to 
a walker, some of the greatest of all the delights of our own 
delightful land, and in this w'ay he finds out a world of informa- 
tion which he would never have learnt by any amount of riding, 
whether in vehicles or on horseback. 
But beyond and above the pleasures of acquiring all this 
knowledge, are the many charms of the walks themselves. You 
ramble through English meadows, whose spring beauties of 
buttercups and daisies may w'ell make you cease to think of 
the boasted glories of the tropics ; past miles of hedgerows 
garlanded with hawthorn, and resounding with the songs of 
birds ; beside many a pool that is the haunt of coot or hern ; 
over purling brooks that display, all along them, willow- weed 
and mallow ; and, as you look up, you may see- the tower of 
some secluded village church towards which your path leads, 
or may hear therefrom the sweet sound of its bells pealing 
across the fields. 
Almost as delightful as these are the green lanes. Many of 
them lead along some ancient route — such as the Icknield Way, 
which was the route from East Anglia across England — but are 
now traversed for miles by little more than some shepherd 
driving his flocks to a distant market ; and they are usually 
