The view from these Malvern Hills is, perhaps, unequalled. They say nobody knows exactly how much of England and Wales can be seen from them. Fifteen counties are certain, and in that range is included the Wrekin, the Mendips, and the Welsh mountains as far as Plinlimmon. On the fine upstanding Herefordshire Beacon is, perhaps, the best specimen of an ancient British camp that we have. Tradition says that here Caractacus defended himself from the Romans. It was “on a May morning on Malverene Hulles” that Piers Plowman had that vision of which Langland wrote five hundred and more years ago. Few centres in our country offer such varied scope to the holiday-maker as the Malverns, where nature and history vie with one another in the matter of attractions. The fresh upland air is tonic and health-giving. That weird dark shadow of the Raggedstone can never have fallen here, or, if it have, its mystical power has become impotent by reason of the many beauties of the place. [Illustration: _The Malvern Hills._] [Illustration: Shepherd in ragged clothes watching his sheep.] HOW BATH WAS DISCOVERED. Some people may tell you that the Romans discovered Bath, but the old story gives the honour to a British Prince, Bladud, who is, variously, said to have been the father of King Lear, and the eldest son of King Lud. Like these two illustrious monarchs, Bladud came in time to be king of Britain. But that was after he had passed through a very sad experience. Prince Bladud, as was becoming the eldest son of a king, spent many years in Athens studying the liberal arts and sciences. But, alas! while in Greece he became a leper, and on his return to Britain he had to be shut away from his fellow-men, for fear that he should infect them with the dreaded disease. The Prince bore his confinement patiently for a time, but at last it became unendurable, and he escaped in disguise, and went out into the world to forget his royal birth and to earn his living as best he could. His wanderings brought him to the hamlet of Swainswick, a few miles from where Bath now stands, and there he found the only occupation given to one afflicted as he was, that of a swineherd. Here for some time he carried on his lowly duties, content to be a free man, no matter how humble his station in life. And they say that early one winter’s morning when he was out in the neighbouring woods with his pigs, the animals suddenly became restive. Before he could stop them a large part of the herd had taken panic and rushed furiously down a hill-side into a swamp, at the foot where they began to wallow in the mud. Bladud pursued them, wondering that pigs should seek to roll in cold muddy water on a winter’s day. But when he reached them, he found, to his surprise, that the water and slime in which they rolled was hot, and that steam arose from the marsh. This explained the problem to the Prince, though he marvelled greatly at the existence of such springs.