[Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson]@TWC D-Link book
Prince Otto

CHAPTER I--IN WHICH THE PRINCE DEPARTS ON AN ADVENTURE
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The hum of watermills, the splash of running water, the clean odour of pine sawdust, the sound and smell of the pleasant wind among the innumerable army of the mountain pines, the dropping fire of huntsmen, the dull stroke of the wood-axe, intolerable roads, fresh trout for supper in the clean bare chamber of an inn, and the song of birds and the music of the village-bells--these were the recollections of the Grunewald tourist.
North and east the foothills of Grunewald sank with varying profile into a vast plain.

On these sides many small states bordered with the principality, Gerolstein, an extinct grand duchy, among the number.

On the south it marched with the comparatively powerful kingdom of Seaboard Bohemia, celebrated for its flowers and mountain bears, and inhabited by a people of singular simplicity and tenderness of heart.

Several intermarriages had, in the course of centuries, united the crowned families of Grunewald and Maritime Bohemia; and the last Prince of Grunewald, whose history I purpose to relate, drew his descent through Perdita, the only daughter of King Florizel the First of Bohemia.

That these intermarriages had in some degree mitigated the rough, manly stock of the first Grunewalds, was an opinion widely held within the borders of the principality.


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