The best time of year to travel by this route is the season when the fruit trees are in blossom. Then the valley of the Elbe is a mass of white and pale green set against a background of yellow sandstone rocks and the sombre greens and purples of pine forests. It is not so very long ago since this district of Saxony formed part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and many names familiar to travellers in these parts recall memories of Slavonic inhabitants--Blasewitz, Loschwitz, Pilnitz, whither the royal family of Wettin, another Slavonic name, was wont to retire for the summer months. The Wettins have now retired from business as monarchs, and their former subjects are following the prevailing fashion of submission to democratic rule tempered by an occasional diversion in the form of an attempted local counter-revolution. These movements are generally innocuous; they sometimes add to the gaiety of nations by the sheer imbecility of their inception and attempted execution, and they appear to be welcome rather than otherwise, as a means of distracting public attention from the universal muddle and general misguidance of European affairs, to those who consider themselves called upon and qualified to set those affairs right. * * * * * You may also approach Prague via Vienna; in former days you were encouraged by Austrian propaganda to do so, and this in order to emphasize the fact that you were expected to regard Prague as a quaint little provincial town lying on the road to nowhere in particular. The hand of the Habsburg lay heavy on Prague, and all the glory of great possessions had to be concentrated on Vienna. We are still on the road to Prague, which has come into its own at last, whereas the glory of Vienna has departed. You wind up to the Bohemian Forest through lovely scenery, where the grey ramparts of Eggenburg look out over the blue distances, across the uplands of Bohemia, passing Tabor dreaming yet of stirring days of religious strife, its towers mirrored in the waters of Jordan, and onward till a wide curve brings the first sight of the towers and spires of "Zlata Praha," Golden Prague. The usual travelling Westerner prefers the shortest and most convenient route to Prague, namely, via Paris. You may get right through from London to Prague in thirty-six hours if you just skirt round Paris by the _ceinture_, but a right-minded wayfarer, who should never hurry, will not miss an opportunity of taking the tonic of a few days in the "Ville Lumière." If he be a true wayfarer--that means not only an enterprising traveller but also given to contemplation--he will bestow some thought on the geographical position respectively of Paris and his destination, Prague, which should help him to enter into the spirit of those two cities; but of this more hereafter.