A fine spring morning, ten days’ leave, a motor car, the open road calling us to new sights and fresh adventures--in such good case we left Cologne one April forenoon for Wiesbaden. The plum blossom was over, but the apple blossom was in great beauty all the way. Why, one asks, cannot English roads be planted with trees whose shade is a blessing to the traveller in the summer months? And again, what happens to the fruit on the myriad trees which grow along the highways of Germany? Are German little boys endowed with virtue of such abnormal quality that they survive the chronic temptations to which they must be subjected in the matter of pears, and apples, and plums? Even the ingenious theory that the apples are cooking ones, designed if stolen to inflict adequate punishment on youthful stomachs, cannot explain away these innumerable orchards and long avenues of fruit trees. The Rhineland is a garden of enchantment when the blossom is in flower. It is a hard saying that any sight on earth can be more beautiful than an English spring at its best. And yet, with memories of an April in the Rhineland, I am bound at least to hesitate. Thanks to the absence of smoke, there is nothing to sully the purity of the air. The vivid green of the fields, the yellow splashes of mustard, the varied tints of tree, and bush, and blossom--all this melts and glows together in the clear sunlight. Wherever the road touches the great river, the beauty of deep flowing waters is added to the scene. The Rhine maidens themselves must surely be at play in the sunshine as the Rhine sweeps by hill and vineyard. Their laughter and joyous song can be heard by fancy’s ear. Forget the presence of road, railway, and villa, and on that piece of jutting rock Siegfried must have talked with the three sisters and mocked their entreaties about the ring. The great world of Wagner’s music is connected in a special sense with the Rhine. The elemental beings with whom he peopled its banks and waters are more in the picture than prosaic tourists of our own type. Withal, who are we to grumble at the latter-day comforts of motor cars and broad highways which bring these delights within our reach? So we picnicked by the roadside in great contentment of spirits while a lark sang overhead. Wisely was it once written, “there will always be something to live for so long as there are shimmery afternoons.”