Frequented Ways: A General Survey of the Land Forms, Climates, and Vegetation of Western Europe, considered in their Relation to the Life of Man; including a Detailed Study of some Typical Regions

Abstract

A LARGE part of Europe is again open to the traveller. Dr. Newbigin, president of the Geographical Section of the British Association this year, does well to direct attention to the frequented ways, and her book asks those who follow them to adopt an appreciative outlook, casting off the insularity bred among our western isles. Insight into the relations of nature and man in Switzerland is not to be gained by selecting hotels where an English chaplain is on the staff. Dr. Newbigin has evidently suffered in this matter, and she remarks (p. 165) that the Catholic religion has the advantage “that no particular form of dress is imposed upon the worshippers.” Her appreciation of the unconventional might have made. her more tolerant (pp. I and 163) of “the superior person” who has been driven from anglicised Grindelwald to Japan or the New Zealand Alps. If she thinks that these fields are reserved for the prattling millionaire, let her consider Mr. Ralph Stock's exquisite little book on the voyage of “The Dream Ship” (1922), and see how the spirit of the Elizabethans may still carry our island-folk, both male and female, across the viewless seas. Frequented Ways: A General Survey of the Land Forms, Climates, and Vegetation of Western Europe, considered in their Relation to the Life of Man; including a Detailed Study of some Typical Regions. By Dr. Marion I. Newbigin. Pp. xi + 321. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 15s. net.