It follows that the highest summits in the Grisons have an altitude which averages less by 2000 feet than that of the Western Alps, while the valleys have an elevation whose superiority is represented by the same figure. Each of these mountainous districts has its peculiar aspect of majesty. In Savoy, the Valais, and Berne, it is the enormous relative height which strikes the eye; on the Grisons it is the stupendous masses and the indescribable interlacing of the mountains, whose crests are always and in every direction brilliant with snow.

The entire valley of the Upper Inn, which forms the two Engadines, is about sixty miles in length. It is thickly sprinkled with villages of considerable extent, a fact which is very remarkable when its severe climate and comparative unproductiveness consequent upon its great elevation are considered. All that industry, impelled by extreme love of gain, could do for a country, has been done for this: the soil is incapable of a greater cultivation than it has received, but winter reigns during nine months of the year; summer, which begins only in June, is over early in September, and even during its continuance the diligently-cultivated fields are often laid waste by storms of hail or resistless torrents which sweep down from the mountains. The richest harvests return only a poor crop of rye and barley to the farmers; nevertheless this is one of the richest districts in all Switzerland. The reason is to be found in two customs

prevalent among the Grison people-one of emigrating to richer countries in youth, another of returning to their native land with fortunes made by industry. A certain habit of reflection teaches the young peasants of the Engadine to look with horror on a state of dependence, and as no division of property could enable the valley to support all who are born there, one or two of the sons of every numerous family leave their home at about the age of 18, and direct their steps to Paris, Marseilles, Lyons, or Bordeaux. Here one of them will pay a fee to the master of some well-accustomed restaurant, or café, to be taken as a garçon; industry and civility recommend him to masters and customers, and his saving habits soon produce a little store, which enables him to turn to account the knowledge of pastry-making innate among the Grison people, and he opens a confectioner's shop. A few years of activity enable him to return to his native valley, with money sufficient to set him up as a travelling merchant between his own country and the foreign towns wherever his connexion may lie. After a few years thus employed, the merchant retires, and thus is kept up the race of small millionaires who are constantly encountered in the Engadine. Mr. Inglis found at Bergam two individuals who had, one 1500l. and another a somewhat smaller amount, invested in the British funds; and at Suss, two peasants, who possessed each as much as 20,000l. sterling. The houses in the Engadine are remarkable for their great size in every dimension but that of height. Many have most curiously-decorated exteriors. The door, or gate, has its painted pillars, some Doric, some Corinthian, with their shafts and capitals. The gateway is spanned by a large arch, generally ornamented with ambitious-looking designs. The windows, too, have their pillars surmounted by a Greek pediment. Upon some part of the wall, generally over the gate, an inscription is found, either in Romansch or Latin, setting forth the date and builder of the house, or recommending it to the protection of God.

SAMADEN the largest village in the Haute Engadine, lies above Pont, and has a daily communication with Chur by diligence. The Bernina pass, leading into the valley of the Vateline, is reached by a bridle-path, practicable for some distance, and with difficulty, for chars. Above Samaden are St. Moritz, Silvaplana, and several smaller villages.

Zuz is a village of about 600 inhabitants. Scanf, Capella, and Brail, follow on the line of road; and at Pantanta we enter upon the Lower Engadine. Below this point the Inn flows in a deeper channel; the mountains have the appearance of being higher, and have their sides clothed with wood.

At Zernetz, or Cernetz (inns, Poste and Lion d'Or), the Inn receives the waters of the Spal. The road from here leads to Suss, one of the largest of the Engadine villages; the valley is very narrow, leaving room only for the river and the road. The road, which traverses the valley of the Lower Engadine, is generally rendered extremely circuitous by the nature of the country. The wide and deep beds of the torrents which desolate the valley in winter, reach some thousand feet up the mountain sides, so that to construct even the worst road it is necessary to carry it to an extreme height above the river, otherwise the torrent-beds would be impassable.

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Tarasp has a mineral spring and several inns. Schuols has a population of 1200. The valley assumes its most pleasing appearance below this place. The river flows at the bottom of a deep, rocky gorge, sprinkled with fir and mountain-ash. The rocks rise as it were out of the water to the height of three or four hundred feet, and generally support a platform covered with stones and shrubs. Above this range of rocks rise perpendicularly to the height of 1500 or 2000 feet. Here and there are patches of rye and barley, interspersed with bits of grass for grazing a few cows or goats. The road runs along the top of the second range of rocks, and here also is the peopled and cultivated part of the valley.

At Martinsbruck, the lowest village of the valley, 3250 feet above the sea-level, the path leaves the Inn, which here enters the Austrian Tyrol by the pass of the Finstermunz. The Imperial arms are seen on the Custom-house close by.

The return to Chur can only be made by the routes already described.

CHUR TO SPLÜGEN.

The pass of the Splügen, constructed by the Austrians, to connect the capital of Lombardy with Switzerland and South Germany, is now traversed twice a-day (in July, Au

gust, September, and October; the rest of the year only once) by the malle-poste from Chur to Milan. The distance from Chur to Colico, where the steamer from Como meets the diligence, is above 76 English miles.

The Via Mala, a section of the Splügen pass, about five miles in length, and eleven from Chur, is annually the object of a special excursion to many travellers. Those who propose to pass on and enter Italy by the Splügen or Bernardin, must be provided with the signature of an Austrian minister on their passports. This regulation is imperative. As far as Reichenau the road is that by which we arrive at Chur from Ilanz. (See page 295.)

At Reichenau we cross the two branches of the Rhine by the pretty wooden bridge, and ascend the Hinter Rhine by its left bank. The road to Thusis, 11 miles beyond Reichenau, is extremely hilly. The opposite bank is occupied by a range of mountains, which approach so nearly to that over which our road is carried as to give the valley a ravinelike character. This section of the route is more thickly sprinkled with the ruins of feudal castles than any other part of Switzerland. The current traditions of this locality have none of that poetical sentiment which is found as we descend to the German banks of the Rhine, but invariably surround the feudalists with a character of odious and brutal tyranny. The castles generally surmount the hills in picturesque boldness, apparently inaccessible and impregnable, but are so storm-beaten, old, and moss-grown, that they can scarcely be distinguished from the rocks on which they are built.

THUSIS (inn, Aigle d'Or), a village of about 700 inhabitants, is situated against the jaws of a wild defile on the terrace of the Heinzenberg, from which you enjoy down the open valley the loveliest variety of prospect in river, plain, mountain, castle, and hamlet. This thriving little town was destroyed by a conflagration in 1845. The houses are being rebuilt a little below the site of the former village, and are of superior construction. At the end of the village a handsome stone bridge crosses the Nolla, an impetuous torrent, which here joins the Rhine. Crossing the bridge the traveller has a good view of the Nollathal, bounded by the peaks of the lofty Piz Beveren.

The country between Reichenau and Thusis is covered with stones or pools, the work of the unruly Rolla, which

has hitherto set at defiance all the attempts made to contain it in a regular channel, and seems to be waiting some Escher Von der Linth to set bounds to its ruinous extravagances. The bridge crossed, we come at once to the entrance of the VIA MALA, one of the most fearfully magnificent gorges in Switzerland. The immense mountain

ridge, which seemed to block up the valley, is now seen rent from base to summit, and we enter the gap, which is the outlet of the Rhine. The cliffs on each side of us rise to a perilous height, and become more vertical and draw nearer together as we advance. The road is notched out of the sides of the rock by the hand of man, and brings us at about a mile from Thusis to a point called Das Verlorenes Loch, the Lost Hole. Here a projecting spur of the mountain formerly most completely blocked up the valley, so that to reach the other side it was necessary to make a painful circuit of many miles. After some hundreds of years, Pocobelli, an Italian engineer, undertook to cut through the overhanging mountain, and formed the present tunnel. The gallery is not extensive, being a little more than 200 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 14 feet high. The view from this tunnel, looking back through the gap by which we entered, includes a pleasing view of the hills beyond Thusis, and the ruins of the large old castle of Rhealt, said to have been built by a Tuscan chief centuries before Christ. Beyond the tunnel the ravine continues narrow, and the road is in part notched out of the cliff. Presently the rocks on the right hand recede, and losing their perpendicular position, form sloping surfaces, which are covered with green fields and the cottages of Rongellen. Beyond this village the rocks over the valley approach and spring perpendicularly to a dizzy height. The road is carried in their sides far above the stream which here is thrice crossed by bridges to evade the obstructions offered by the form of the rock. "The four or five miles of the Splügen Pass, which are called the VIA MALA, constitute one continued, tortuous, black, jagged chasm, split through the stupendous mountain-ridge from the summit to the base, in perpendicular, angular, and convoluted zigzag rifts, so narrow in some places that you could almost leap across, yet so deep that the thunder of the Rhine dies upon the ear in struggling and reverberating echoes upwards. Sixteen hundred feet at least the precipices in some places rise perpendicular