I ordered this short book from the library and received a photocopy of it which I was told I could keep.

At the beginning of the book there is a short biography of the author,

I was looking forward to reading the book since I enjoy reading about walking, but I was somewhat disappointed, since only at the beginning was there a short passage about walking; Stevenson describes mostly a trip to France and mostly the “woods in Spring”.

He does tell us that a walking tour should be gone upon alone since “freedom is of the essence”. “There should be “no cackle of voices at your elbow to jar on the meditative silence of the morning”. He talks of “that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air” that “ends in a peace that passes comprehension”.

The book was written in the 1800s, which is very apparent from the author’s style. He writes wonderfully but there were quite a few words unknown to me such as chanticleer, bandoleer, gibbet, fagots, dulcet and gymnosophist. Stevenson quotes freely in French and Latin, which quotes are untranslated, the readers of the time being more familiar with these languages than we are today, and perhaps on the whole better educated.

We understand that he loves nature, or at least the forest, but someone on Facebook informed me that in another book, probably “Travels with a donkey in the Cévennes”, he mercilessly beats his stubborn donkey that would not do what he wanted.

In this book his donkey is called Modestine, and I expect he mostly sat on her back and did little walking, though she may just have borne his baggage.

He tells us that Charles VI while hunting captured an old stag with a collar on which were engraved the words “Cæsar mihi hoc donavit.” (Cæsar gave this to me.”) Do stags live that long?

If possible, I will be reading Stevenson’s “Travels with a donkey”, but cannot exactly recommend the present book, though it is of some interest. ( )