One of the forerunners of the modern outdoor travel narratives. Stevenson traveled 12-days and 120 miles through the south-central Cevennes mountain range in France in 1879. The region is still do this day one of the poorest in France, and in 1703, it was the scene of a bloody Protestent rebellion against the Catholic church. Stevenson was sickly most of his life and craved adventure. He also needed to make money and this was his second book, before he became the well-known author with "Treasure Island". Provides some interesting details of an early "sleeping bag", large and heavy enough to require a donky to carry.

See also the open source annotation project: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ann... ( )