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UPPER ENGADINE

PAlfTTED RYJ.HARIJWK;KE IJ^WS
DESCRIBFJl HYS.C.MtlSSOK

Mlm

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BLACK'S SMALLER SERIES
OF BEAUTIFUL BOOKS

THE UPPER ENGADINE

piaos 68. >"tT

IN THK SAMS 8XRIKS

Bach containing 24 foil-page
illastiations in coloor

DBVON— NORTH

DBVON-SOUTH

IBBLAND

JAMAICA

LIVBRFOOL

NOBWBOIAN FJORDS

PARIS

Published by A. & C. Black
4 Soho Square, London, W.

%%*

%'%

*
*

• ■• • *

»KR ENGADINE

NARUWICii)^ LfiWU

SPF.

MVSSON

LES BLACK

THE

UPPER ENGADINE

PAINTED BY

J. HARDWICKE LEWIS

DESCRIBED BY

SPENCER C. MUSSON

WITH

24 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1907

Published SepUmher 1907

DUABUS

ITINERUM ET LABORUM SOCIIS

UXORI ET SORORI

UTERQUE

PICTOR ET SCRIPTOR

DEDICAMUS

CONTENTS

CHAP.

PAOB

I. Historical Sketch

II. First Impressions

III. Samadbn .

IV. Celerina and Cresta

V. To St Moritz .

•

VI. St Moritzdorf .

VII. St Moritzrad •

1 t

VIII. Winter . . . .

•

IX. Campfbr . . . .

106

X. The Julier

•

112

XI. SiLS . . . .

•

120

XII. ISOLA . . . .

137

XIII. Val Breoaolia

•

273404

Contents

CHAP.

XIV. A Botanical Digression •

XV. PONTRESINA

XVI. The Roseog and Morteratsch Valleys
XVII. The Bernina Valley

XVIII, Las Aonas to Punt Ota

PAOB

157
166
180
185
193

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 Piz Bemina and the Morteratsch Glacier .

Frontispiece

2 Klosters with Kanarthom and Weisshom .

3 Mont Blanc from above Finhaut

4 The Ortler from the Stelvio Road .

5 Pontresina from above Celerina

6 The Gorge of the Inn^ known as the Charnadura

Gorge • • • • •

7 Piz Albana and Piz Julier from the Statzersee

8 Piz della Margna from Crestalta

9 The Jungfrau from the Kleiner Scheidegg .

10 Smirise on Cresta^ Celerina^ and Samaden .

1 1 Piz Albana and Piz Julier in Winter

12 The Julier Pass ....

13 Sils Baselgia ....

14 Val Fex .

15 Maloja from the Road to Isola

FAOINQ PAOa

20
36
38
56

98
100
104
114
126
130
138

List of Illustrations

16 Lago di Cavloccio .

17 Lago di Bitabergo .

18 The Schwartzhorn from the Fluela Hospice

19 The Matterhorn from the Rifielberg

20 Muottas Muraigl

21 The Rosegg Glacier

22 The Palu Glacier .

23 Piz Palii from the Diavolezza Hut

24 Piz Kesch from the Sertig Pass

FACINO PAGE

144

148

156

174

178

182

188

192

202

x\\

THE UPPER ENGADINJE

CHAPTER I

HISTORICAL SKETCH

It would be beyond the province of this book to
give any but the slightest sketch of the tangled
history of the Upper Engadine ; yet if, as the Lord
Chancellor has recently reminded us, we cannot
understand anything human unless we know how it
grew, a description of the valley and its people
should be prefaced by a brief notice of the history
that lies behind them. It is, of course, but part,
though a very individual part, of the history of
Upper Rhaetia, the later Graubiinden, and this, again,
as it advances, is more and more interlaced with that
of Switzerland ; but in no part of the curious little
patchwork of races which forms the Alpine confedera-
tion have more diverse factors combined in a more
distinct and peculiar product.

The earliest historical document possessed by a
people is usually its language, but that spoken by the
Engadiners gives us little help as regards their origin.

The Upper Engadine

1 1 is the form of Romansch known as Ladin, one of
the many languages evolved from the later Latin,
and is, of course, a witness to the strong material
grip, and the spiritual spell, in which Rome held half
Europe; but, in truth, the population itself is as a
document on which the Romans are but the last and
most masterful writers. Since their time there have
been only interlineations, mainly Teutonic, but many
are the traces of antecedent scripts. Could we treat
this human document as a palimpsest, we should
probably find below the prevailing Latin the elusive
and haunting Celtic romance that is woven into the
past of so many European peoples ; dovetailed with
it, in this case, would be a grave Etruscan legend :
while, beneath all, deeply indented, not to be mistaken,
though not to be understood, are reminders of un-
chronicled races and forgotten tongues. One ethnic
wave after another has surged up that ancient passage
between Italy and central Europe ; each as it passed
or receded has contributed some component to the
population, though, unless it be in names of natural
features — ^^rock and stream and hill — few have left
traces in the speech.

As regards names of places, the reader will see as
we proceed that the valley is a happy hunting-ground
for etymologists. Volumes have been written about
the name Engadine itself The ordinary derivation,
the many variations of which agree in making it
mean the Valley of the Inn, seems natural and straight-
forward enough ; but this is just what subjects it to

Roman Occupation

dark suspicion in the eyes of your true etymologist.
Alternatives are not wanting, each with its con-
tribution to constructive history. I believe respect-
able arguments have been adduced for tracing its
parentage to the Hebrew Engaddi, after which it is
but a step to identify the population with a fragment
of the lost ten tribes.

Coming within the domain of stricter history, the
earliest authentic material is, of course, Roman. For
centuries the Rhaetian upland formed one of the
ragged edges of the empire, but it was first definitely
subjugated under Augustus by Drusus and Tiberius,
B.C. 15, after a good deal of hard fighting that won
the magniloquent admiration of Horace. This was
the most fateful incident in the history of the region.
During the next generations the population received
an indelible imprint from the strong, adaptive mould
of Roman thought and civilisation, and the lingua
romanorum rustica^ as the Rhaetian speech was
termed as late as the ninth century, in an injunction
of a Synod of Mainz, became their familiar tongue.

This, no doubt, facilitated the introduction of

Christianity, which must have occurred early in the

Roman occupation, though we have no authentic

record of the manner of it. By the end of the second

century the whole province was nominally Christian,

and it must have been soon after that Chur, the

centre of government and residence of the praeses,

became a bishopric.

From that time onward the history of the pro-

The Upper Engadine

vince is inseparably connected with that of the
see. Froude dwells somewhere on the indefeasible
permanence of a bishopric: through eight chaotic
centuries the bishopric of Chur seems the one
enduring element in the land. The Arian con-
troversy rent the empire in twain, bringing Rhaetia
under the sway of Theodoric, the Ostrogoth : the
great heretic ruled it well, after his wont : he died,
and twenty years of religious war filled the Rhaetian
mountains with fugitives from devastated Italy.
Upper Rhaetia was made over to the Franks in
return for help given to the heretics: the praeses
was replaced by a German count, the Roman
civilisation crumbled into ruin, grass grew on the
Roman roads, and the efficient Roman administra-
tion gave place to anarchy. Charles the Great,
gathering the reins of empire into his strong hand,
imposed something of law and order, and made the
bishop his regent: he died, and in the partition
of his realm Rhaetia was divided into two. The count
of the upper division plundered the churches and
dispossessed the clergy: Ludwig, the Pious, re-
instated them. The Treaty of Verdun transferred
the see from the archbishopric of Milan to that of
Mainz. Huns from the East and Saracens from
the West streamed over the passes, "spreading
ruin and scattering ban." No vicissitude of mis-
fortune was spared the bishopric; it was wasted,
plundered, sequestrated, sold, driven often, as it
seemed, into entire wreck; yet ever, when the

The Bishopric of Chur

tyranny was overpast, when the storm had spent
itself and the flood died down, men saw it standing
amid ruin, uninjured and unaltered, as a thing which
the changes and chances of mortal life were power-
less to harm. Still it stands, shorn of its power and
its splendour dimmed, yet the most venerable and
imposing monument in the land, summing up in
itself seventeen centuries of history.

The connection of the Upper Engadine with the
see was especially close, and it was profoundly
affected by the transfer of the diocese from Milan to
Mainz in 843, bringing it within the range of
German influence and relations. Probably about
this time, if not earlier, the bishops commenced to
exercise countly jurisdiction there, and their authority
was confirmed by Otto III. in 988. By grants, gifts,
sales, bequests, their territorial and seignorial rights
were continually extended. Lands, rents, tolls,
mining royalties, tithes of fishing, hunting, and
farming, gathered into the large episcopal hands, till
by the end of the twelfth century the bishops were
the feudal lords and rulers of the whole of the Upper
Engadine.

Then the history changes its trend and derives its
principal interest from the slow, almost imperceptible,
acquisition of rights and liberties by the communes,
which seem very early to have had something of
corporate existence. The frequent story of ecclesi-
astical encroachment is reversed; it is the little

peasant community that has the "dead hand" that

The Upper Engadine

never relaxed its grasp, and, here a little there a
little, grasped ever more and more. The relation
between the bishops and the tenants seems to have
been one of friendly antagonism. The episcopal
rule was in the main benevolent, of far lighter
pressure than the mailed fist of the ordinary feudal
lord, and the attitude of the tenants was one of
deference and regard, and of pride in their con-
nection with the great Church. When at length
they cast off the episcopal leading-strings, they
showed their desire to make no sudden wrench
with their past, by taking the title of their purely
secular organisation from the venerable institution
under whose shadow it had grown up, Lia della
Cad^, foedus cathedrale, the League of God's
House.

This was in 1367. The immediate object of the
league was the frustration of the secret treaty which,
it leaked out, was being concluded between Austria
and Bishop Peter, the Bohemian, for the sale of his
territorial rights, but it continued as a permanent
institution, and gradually imposed its co-operation
on the bishop in all matters that concerned the
temporalities of the see.

The example was quickly followed. In 1424 the
Grey League of Western Rhaetia, which was
ultimately to give its name to the confederation, was
sworn under a great sycamore at Trons, and in
1436 the "jurisdictions" of the counts of Toggen-
burg, fearing a partition of territory on the threatened

The Three Leagues

extinction of the house, formed the League of the
Ten Jurisdictions.

A dominating consideration in the formation of
all the leagues was the decay of the empire, and the
capture by Austria of imperial claims and functions,
thus narrowing what was, with all its imperfections,
a large and beneficent ideal to the local interests of
a dynasty. Gradually and tentatively the three
drew together. I am not sure if modern research
has not relegated their meetings at Vazerol farm,
and the oath of eternal union that they are said to
have sworn there in 1524, to the same historical
limbo as William Tell and other picturesque friends
of our childhood. There is no doubt, however, that
about this date "The Free State of the Three
Leagues of Upper Rhaetia" makes its appear-
ance on the European stage, claiming to be a
sovereign state under the immediate overlordship
of the empire. At the head of the Cad6 was a
president, at the head of the Grey League a high
justiciary, at the head of the Ten Jurisdictions a
Landamman.

By a mixture of statutory and customary
sanctions the accepted constitution of the little state
was one that might have resulted from the collabora-
tion of Pandora and Colonel Lynch. The communes
enjoyed internal autonomy, and were the ultimate
sovereign power. They sent delegates to a diet,
which met in autumn, first at Vazerol, afterwards

alternately at Chur, Ilanz and Davos; but they

The Upper Engadine

held these delegrates jealously in tether, obliging
them to show mandate from their constituencies for
their votes, allowing appeal to the communes from
their decisions, and requiring the ratification of
federal measures by a majority of the communes ;
in fact, the normal basis of the constitution was an
habitual and automatic referendum. For the trans-
action of current business there was a committee,
afterwards styled congress, consisting of the three
chiefs, assisted in specified cases by a limited number
of delegates ; and, by way of putting a further spoke
in the wheel of state, this body acted as intermediary
between the communes and the diet. But the
supreme stroke of genius in the provision of anarchy
was the strafgericht. I suppose a strafgericht is
the most truculent spectre that ever haunted a
political system. Anyone might conjure it on the
scene by raising the cry that the commonwealth was
in danger, and calling on the flag companies to turn
out. A flag company consisted of some three hundred
men. If a sufficient number responded, they marched
to the nearest important town, and instituted a sort
of drumhead court-martial, which dealt out fines,
confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and capital
punishment at its will. If those who took a different
view on the question of the day could muster a
stronger strafgericht, this would suppress the first
and proceed to mete out like measure to those whose
opinions differed from its own. Ultimately the diet

might get together and impose a truce, annulling,

Neighbourly Reception

so far as remained possible^ the proceedings on both
sides.

This, however, was provision for the future ; the
youngf state started on its career full of enthusiasm
and harmony, and in blissful ignorance of the wild
oats that it was sowing. Common views and
common danger led it into close alliance with the
neighbouring Swiss confederation, the utility of
which was soon apparent.

For the little aspirant for entry into the European
family had to pay its footing in the only approved
fashion. In those days a state was not taken
seriously till it had shown what it could do in the
matter of fighting. It may be doubted whether the
world has yet got much beyond this primitive test of
fitness for political existence. How many exemplary
decades in the paths of peace and progress would
have given Japan the position among civilised
nations to which she stepped in eighteen months
of tremendous military achievement. The neigh-
bours of the leagues cheerfully afforded them the
necessary opportunity. With goodwill on both
sides, a respectable pretext in such matters is merely
a matter of detail, and is never long in present-
ing itself. The abstention of the new state from
the Swabian League was in itself an unfriendly act
in a vassal of the empire, and when this was
emphasised by alliance with the Swiss confederation,
war was already latent between it and its eastern

neighbours.

9 B

The Upper Engadine

The gfovernment at Innsbruck was at that time
dominated by the Tyrolese nobles, who were always
chafing under the elementary conditions of peace and
order imposed by the empire. In December 1498
it seemed to them that they could not better improve
the opportunity afforded by Maximilian, the Emperor-
elect, being busy in the Netherlands, than by falling
on the upstart peasant community on their borders.
Without a word of warning the Miinsterthal was
raided, a couple of villages burnt, the convent
sacked and the nuns turned adrift. The leaguers
as a reply made a little excursion over the Finster-
miinz in the following March and burnt Nauders.
Up to this the game had been of a somewhat
amateur character, but now more professional players
were drawn in. An imperial army crossed the
Finstermunz and marched up the Lower Engadine,
butchering, burning and looting. Nearly the whole
population fled to the Upper Engadine, and the
raiders carried off, together with their booty, thirty-
six of the principal burghers as hostages to Meran.
This brought into play the defensive alliance
between the leagues and the Swiss confederacy,
which proceeded to call out its forces. In a brilliant
little battle at Frastenaz a Swiss army defeated the
imperial troops with great slaughter. Maximilian,
who was not the man to let so congenial a game go
on without having a hand in it, hurried up from the
Netherlands, sending orders that as strong a force

as could be got together should be assembled in the

Las Islas

Arlbergr. At the other end of the frontier the army
which had been defeated at Frastenaz was brought
up to invade the Munsterthal. It had been greatly
strengthened and equipped with powerful artillery,
as artillery went in those days, and entrenched itself
in a strong position at Calven.

The Rhaetian leaders recognised one of the
frequent cases in which the soundest strategical
defence is a bold offensive. At any moment the
emperor might arrive, and they would find them-
selves at the mercy of overwhelming forces. The
confederacy, it is true, had promised help, but they
had their own frontier to think of, and, moreover,
were not exempt from the besetting weakness of
confederacies to do things by halves, and do the
halves too late. For the moment the leagues had
to rely on themselves, and they resolved to risk all
on one cast of the die.

There was no doubt about the risk. When the

forces of the Upper Engadine mustered, in the

traditional Las Islas the men who knew war looked

grave at the slender troop which was to be hurled

against the strong ramparts of Calven. It was one

of those supreme moments in a people's life which

are the ultimate test of history, and the little state

rose nobly to the call. From lonely farm and

mountain hamlet, from distant strath and bleak

lake-side, there hurried up old men still sturdy, and

boys already strong, begging to be taken into the

ranks that seemed mustering to die. A force

The Upper Engadine

deficient in everything but hardihood and enthusiasm
marched down, under the leadership of Thomas
Planta, to join the Rhaetian army which was
gathering- at Suoz, and which finally numbered
about 8cxx) men. The troops of the Cad6 were
commanded by Benedict Fontana, those of the Grey
League by Hercules Capaul, those of the Ten
Jurisdictions by Peter Giiler. On Easter Monday,
the 20th of May, they crossed the Fuorn Pass, and
the same evening- at Miinster got into touch with
the enemy.

In numbers, equipment, and warlike experience,
the forces appeared hopelessly ill-matched ; it must
have seemed that the imperialists, numbering- some
13,000, might easily have fallen on the little invad-
ing army and destroyed it on the way. But they
remained doggedly behind their strong entrench-
ments. In truth, their caution was not misplaced;
the contest was far from being as unequal as it
seemed. Against the compact force of sturdy moun-
taineers, burning with the enthusiasm of new-born
liberty and the recollection of recent outrage, the
emperor's lieutenant mustered a heterogeneous host,
most of whom knew little, and cared less, for what
they were fighting. With troops still cowed by
the slaughter of Frastenaz, were Neapolitans yearn-
ing for their sunny vineyards, and Vorarlbergers
anxious to be quit of a quarrel that was none of
theirs ; there were Tyrolese nobles holding haughtily

aloof from their peasant neighbours, and peasants

Calven

full of sullen resentment at being- dragged from their
homes for a barons' war; above all, in the rank
and file of the army was the demoralising misgiving
that they were fighting- against a cause which was
that of common men throughout the world ; behind
the slender Rhaetian ranks loomed the giant shadow
of democracy.

The over-ruling consideration in the leaguers'
strategy was that no time could be lost. As soon
as they came in sight of the imperialist position
on the evening of the 22nd, it was seen that a mere
frontal attack would be hopeless, and during the
night the leaders detached a third of their whole
force under Ringh and Lombris to occupy a position
on the Schinzenburg, which sloped steeply up from
the imperialists' rear. It was already dawn when
they reached the assigned position and were first
perceived by the enemy : a rumour ran through the
camp below, repeated in the many tongues of the
motley host, that 30,cxx) Swiss confederates had
arrived. Ringh and Lombris rested their men ; then,
forming them in two divisions, the numerical weak-
ness of which and the absence of a reserve was
concealed by the high ground from which they
advanced, they delivered an impetuous attack where
attack had not been expected and fortifications had
hardly been thought of. On the other side, Fontana
and Capaul held their men in hand till, more and
more, the enemy's strength had been drawn into
the fierce fighting in the rear. Then, as Grant

The Upper Engadine

would have said, they let everything- go in : it was

no time to think of reserves or of any of the prudent

maxims of war. But the imperialists behind their

ramparts did not know that there was nothing- to

reinforce or replace their furious assailants: the

illusion of those 30,(XX) Swiss obsessed them, and

fighting- on a double front, they believed they were

beset by overwhelming- numbers. Still, their strong

fortifications and superiority in artillery made the

fight long doubtful. Time after time the slender line

of leaguers surged up to the entrenchments, and fell

back ragged and broken, but ever, with indomitable

purpose, the diminished wave gathered itself together

and swirled untiringly round the opposing- ramparts.

And all the while the fierce torrent of mountaineers

which had descended from the Schinzenburg- was

pressing on the rear. In the hottest moment of the

battle, Hercules Capaul fell mortally wounded by a

cannon-ball, crying with his dying breath, " Courage,

lads, I am but one man less. Never mind that; it

is now or never for Grey League and all Leagues."

The brave words passed from mouth to mouth,

exactly voicing the temper of the little host, and

seemed the one thing needful to nerve them to the

final effort. Thomas Planta, the Upper Engadine

leader, with a body of picked mountaineers scaled a

spur of the hill on the right, whence he made a

furious onset on yet a third side of the bewildered

imperialists. It was the beginning of the end; in

all directions the leaguers swept into the entrench-

Calven

ments, and in the words of the chronicler, **it was
no longer a battle but a butchery." Quarter was
neither asked nor given, and, as though no note of
horror should be spared to the imperialist disaster,
the bridge over the Etsch, swollen and icy with the
melting- snows of spring, gave way under the first
rush of fugitives, and left the remainder, penned
like sheep for the slaughter, between raging stream
and merciless foe.

The complete victory of the leagues was
cheaply purchased by the loss of 300 men. The
imperialist loss was estimated at 5000, a large
proportion of the 13,000 engaged; their military
chest, their artillery, stores, and a vast quantity
of arms, fell into the hands of the victors, and were
invaluable to their ill-equipped army ; but of far more
significance than any material loss or gain was the
crushing defeat of the proud Tyrolese nobility and
the trained soldiers of the empire,

At the hands of a little people, few, but apt in the field.

The memory of this brilliant feat of arms in

which their ancestors took so prominent a part is

justly cherished in the Upper Engadine. On Easter

Monday 1899 nearly the whole population held high

festival at Suoz in commemoration of the earliest

triumph of their national life. There was the

solemn thanksgiving of a God-fearing people ; there

were the speeches, songs, and processions usual on

The Upper Engadine

such occasions ; but what most touched the popular
imagination, and stirred the crowded Engadiners
to indescribable emotion, was the unfurling in their
midst of the faded and tattered banner that had
floated over their fathers on the blood-stained slopes
of Calven.

V(B metis was the recognised maxim of the times,
and was efficiently applied by the conquerors in the
few days during which they still had a free hand.
Defeat had been the last thing dreamt of in the
Vinstgau, and the inhabitants had taken no pre-
caution to remove their families or hide their goods.
The Rhaetians showed how well they had learnt
the lesson lately taught them in the Engadine by
first sacking and then burning every village within
reach. The Tyrolese answer to this struck even
those iron times with horror : the thirty-six hostages
taken from the Engadine were brought unarmed
into the market-place of Meran, and there harried
to death with lances.

Audacious as the Rhaetian strategy had seemed,
it had not only received the supreme sanction of
success, but events showed that any more cautious
course would have been disastrous. Two days
after the battle Maximilian marched with 8000
troops into Landeck, and on the 28th of May, as the
little host of invaders were toiling back with their
booty over the Fuorn, he rode over the field of
Calven, where more than a thousand of his men
still lay unburied. Bursting into tears, and crying,

Invasion

"Why was I not there! O why was I not there!"
he swore an oath of vengeance, and on the 6th of
June an imperial army of io,cxx) men set out from
Bormio and Livigno for the Upper Engadine with
orders to waste and take possession.

But not thus was history to be undone. The
nation which had been made was entrenched by
nature in a fitting- stronghold, and when with
terrible toil the invaders had brought their artillery
through the snow which still lay thick on the
Casanna Pass, they found all points of vantage
utilised to dispute their progress. At every narrow
gorge, and from every overhanging cliff, great stones
were rolled down on them, mangling men and beasts,
and breaking the wheels of cart and limber, and
when at length they reached their objective, they
found themselves in the barren possession of an
empty land.

For at the approach of the invaders, the En-

gadiners had hardened themselves to a great resolve.

They carried their families, and all goods that could

be removed, into inaccessible fastnesses in the

mountains, and committed to the flames everything

that could give shelter or sustenance to the enemy.

When the imperial troops, weary and harassed,

and having dwindled at every step, emerged into the

open valley to which they had looked for rest and

the reward of their labours, lo, the smoke of the

country went up as the smoke of a furnace.

They marched up as far as Ponte, only to see the

17 c

The Upper Engadine

remaining- villages burnt before their eyes, the in-
habitants out of reach in the surrounding mountains.
The sole choice left them was as to the road of return,
but scouts sent beyond the charred walls that had
been Pontresina found the Bernina valley so closely
beset that the ascent of it to the pass was hopeless.
The troops were too cowed by the horrors of the
descent from the Casanna for a return by that route
to be thought of. The only escape open to them
was to quit the Upper Engadine and descend to
Zernetz, and thence pass over the Fuorn and Buffalora
passes to the Stilserjoch. The vast crowd that was
no longer an army streamed down the desolated
valley, harried all the way by the nimble enemy.
Their sufferings are described as appalling": men
dropped down from exhaustion, or flung- away their
arms to enable them to stagger on ; some went mad
with hunger and misery, and browsed upon the fields
like cattle, or prowled among the smouldering- ruins
for any morsel of food that might have been left
behind, and fought like beasts over what they found.
All the while the remorseless mountaineers dog'gred
their march, and let no straggler or forager escape.
When the sad procession reached Zernetz, they found
the bridges broken down, and days had to be spent in
getting- across the Inn, already swelling to its summer
volume from the melting of the glaciers. Still their
route lay through a land that could give them
nothing, for the Miinsterthal and Vinstgau had
been so wasted by successive raids that men said

Invasion

the inhabitants turned out their children to grass.
The remnants of the gallant army that had left the
Tyrol for the conquest of the Upper Engadine
crawled back a ghastly and spirit-broken crowd that
could be put to no useful purposes of war for the rest
of the campaign.

I believe that recent research has abundantly
shown, what must have been fully realised at the
time, how much the Leagueland, and probably also
the Confederation, owed to the heroic determination
and self-sacrifice of the Upper Engadine. The
victory of Calven would have been fruitless, and the
whole course of history might have been changed,
had Maximilian been able to carry out his plan of
occupying this frontier valley and, sweeping over the
passes, establishing himself at Chur, whence he could
have subjugated in detail and at leisure the several
valleys of the leagues. The interposition in his
path of an empty land gave just the time that was
needed for the lethargic confederacy to realise the
common danger and bring its forces to bear.
Gradually its troops filtered into the Leagueland, first
from Uri, Zurich and Glarus, then from Bern,
Lucerne and distant Friburg, and by mid- June a
considerable army had mustered at Chur, whence it
proceeded over the passes into the Engadine.

They found the work they came for done, but

there was still plenty left for them to do. Chur and

the Upper Rhineland were safe behind the wasted

Engadine, but there remained a long frontier of the

The Upper Engadine

allies on which the forces of the empire and the
Swabian League were gathering-, and it was only-
after six bloody battles that Maximilian consented
to treat on any terms of mutual concession. On the
22nd September 1500, representatives of the ex-
hausted combatants concluded peace at Basel,
among the provisions of which was the indepen-
dence of the Free State of the three leagues.

Through a baptism of blood and fire, to use a
favourite figure of its chroniclers, the infant state
had passed into the European family, and it may
be safely said that neither exemplary conduct nor
assertion of the inalienable rights of man would have
been of like avail. An aggregate of humanity is
seldom made into a nation in ways of pleasantness
and paths of peace, but by being

heated hot with burning fears.
And bathed in hissing baths of tears,
And battered with the strokes of doom
To shape and use.

I have dwelt on this opening episode in the
independent life of the Leagueland at greater length
than would be possible with the rest of its history,
both because the Upper Engadine was specially
concerned in it, geographical position entailing on it
the brunt of battle and of sacrifice, and also because
it was the period in which the temper of the state
rose to its highest level.

The subsequent history is not such pleasant

c i, t.

: ♦"

The Valtelline

reading. Well would it have been for the leagues
if they could have rested content with the inde-
pendence so hardly won within the limits that had
sufficed their fathers. With that splendid dawn
behind them, they might have passed their after-day
in the proverbial happiness of the people that have
no history. As it was, for a century and a half they
had history enough, but happiness was far to seek.
Far to seek also was the noble temper and lofty
self-sacrifice which had assured their freedom.
Perhaps it was not in human nature that a people
who had proved their strength should have remained
entrenched in their barren uplands, and given the
world an example of ** plain living and high thinking."
East and south of their inhospitable mountains
were facile descents to generous and sunny valleys
whose history was but a record of transfer from one
overlordship to another. The Valtelline, in which
term was included both the Valtelline proper and the
allied valleys of Bormio and Bregaglia, was to be
for nearly two centuries the dominating considera-
tion of Rhaetian politics. In 1404 it had been
transferred in due legal form to the bishopric of
Chur by Mastino Visconti of Milan, as a token of
gratitude for the hospitality shown him during his
exile. For a long while the episcopal possession was
of a somewhat shadowy character, but its legal
validity seems to have been generally allowed, and
was recognised by Milan and by the empire. The
leagues had gradually come to look on themselves

The Upper Engadine

as the political heirs of the bishopric. The bishopric,
it is true, felt in no immediate need of heirs, but on
the conclusion of the Musso war, in the course of
which the leagues had satisfied themselves of the
value of the territory by thoroughly plundering it,
their merely colourable claims were enforced by the
cogent logic of armed possession. An agreement
was then come to by which the bishop transferred
to them his sovereignty in return for an annual
payment.

Thus, in an evil hour for their souls, the Rhaetians
entered on a possession that was to prove a veritable
damnosa hereditas. For the sake of those en-
chanting valleys they were to sacrifice all the higher
ideals of national life, they were to see their land
wasted and their villages sacked and burnt, their
fortresses garrisoned by their hereditary foes, the
mountain passes which should have assured their
freedom made strongholds of the oppressor, and,
worse than all, their state torn by fratricidal strife
and the population given over to an ignoble scramble
for foreign bribes and hire.

For the leagues were not alone in desiring the
Valtelline, and by annexing it they brought their
little state within the interplay of vast forces which
they could neither control nor comprehend. The
conflict of aims and interests which culminated in
the chaotic waste and bloodshed of the Thirty
Years' War, was about to make that immemorial

highway between Italy and Central Europe of vital

Foreign Policy

importance to two great powers, and of keen interest
to all the rest. We have in our own day seen in
another continent the demoralising effect on a
community of simple, God-fearing farmers of finding
themselves the possessors of what all the world
wants. The primitive institutions which served
their fathers are unequal to the complex situation,
the opportunities for the facile acquisition of wealth
sap the ancient integrity, the state becomes honey-
combed with corruption, and moral barriers are lost
in a venal and shifty diplomacy.

Thus it was in the Leagueland. The moun-
taineers found themselves courted by half the world ;
envoys from distant and brilliant courts vied with
one another in winning the good graces of the stolid
Rhaetians, and found, moreover, that their good
graces could only be won by very substantial argu-
ments. The great families, the Plantas, de Salis, and
others, to whom in the days of humbler aims and
nobler temper the State had owed so much, led the
game, but by no means had it all to themselves.
The democratic constitution gave every peasant
a voice in the policy of the State, and the whole
population were gradually drawn into unseemly
competition for foreign money, pensions, titles,
privileges, and what not.

To this sordid strife was added the bitterness
of religious dissension. Europe was then in the
throes of the Reformation. The Leagueland was
able, by virtue of its extreme decentralisation, to pass

The Upper Engadine

through the crisis with less strain and friction than
occurred elsewhere. Had it had no foreig-n policy, it
might have succeeded in this, as in so many other
matters, in making the lion lie down with the lamb in
neighbourly tolerance. In 1526, at the inception of
the controversy, the diet, with a wisdom altogether
beyond the times, declared that a man's belief was a
matter between God and himself, that individual con-
science and practice should be free, and that each
commune could decide for itself whether its church
should be the domain of priest or preacher. In these
circumstances Protestantism was, of course, for some
time somewhat sporadic, but gradually the two per-
suasions fell into a more or less geographical
distribution. The Grey League in the main, abode
by the old faith, the Ten Jurisdictions and the Lower
Engadine became strongly Protestant, with patches
of Catholicism here and there, as at Miinster, Tarasp,
and in the Samnaun ; the territory of God's House
was much divided, but for the most part the districts
round the Cathedral town remained Catholic. The
Upper Engadine, with which we are more especially
concerned, took longer than any other district in
making up its mind. The sober and tolerant temper
bred by the give-and-take of self-government was
perhaps reinforced by a reluctance to sever the long
and intimate connection with the bishopric. They
would probably have preferred a real reformation,
could they have had it, to a schism. For more than
a generation they stood halting between two opinions.

The Reformation

And though, one by one, the communes ultimately

decided for Protestantism, it usually required, as we

shall see in the first of such decisions at Pontresina,

some fiery Elijah from without to rush them over

the threshold on which they were hesitating. Had

they been left to themselves they might have struck

out some local compromise such as we arrived at in

England. But they were not enough of an island

for that ; profound Germans on one side of them, and

enthusiastic Italians on the other, were for ever

bringing home the necessity of being one thing or the

other to men with an inherited aptitude for being

two things at once. So, by the end of 1626, the

Upper Engadine had become distinctly, though not

enthusiastically Protestant, and the Free State was

definitively divided against itself on the questions

that most deeply sunder the souls of men.

All Europe was at the same time gathering into

two hostile camps, ostensibly on the same questions,

though the real aims and motives of the different

states were very various, and by no means very

religious. If we may apply to those times the terms

of modern political slang, the policy of the greater

powers may be described as one of wire-pulling and

axe-grinding. Austria combined sincere bigotry with

a healthy appetite for land ; ranged behind her were

the lesser states of South Germany, actuated partly

by neighbourhood, partly by prescriptive allegiance

to the empire, that ghost of imperial Rome which

still haunted the European polity. The dynastic tie

25 D

The Upper Engadine

of the empire had drawn the tentacles of Spain from
one peninsula to the other ; they had already clutched
Naples, Milan and some smaller states, and were
ever extending their grasp. Inspiring or disconcert-
ing these, was the stealthy and shifting diplomacy of
the Vatican.

On the other side, the arch wire-puller was
Richelieu, who, having stamped out the Huguenots
at home, posed as the champion of religious liberty
abroad. Behind France were : England, fitfully and
financially; the United Provinces, fighting for dear
life, the North German States from mixed motives
of their own ; Venice, Savoy, and the smaller states
of Italy, trembling before the voracity of Austria and
Spain ; while, in the forefront of the battle, was
Sweden, the one power, which, as represented by her
brilliant and heroic king, was single-minded in the
struggle.

In the stress of these vast conflicting forces,
reflecting within itself their complex sympathies and
antagonisms, the little state was wrenched and
strained almost to complete undoing. Its policy
oscillated with the unstable balance of its own party
warfare, or with the shifting fortunes of the larger
struggle, or according as the support of one or other
of the combatants seemed best to ensure its posses-
sion of the Valtelline. This became a sort of
political conscience to which all else was subordi-
nated and by which every policy was tried ; no matter

to whom or to what they were false, to this, amid

Under Foreign Rule

all tergiversations, "faith, unfaithful, kept them
falsely true."

Their final change of front occurred when France
was represented by the Due de Rohan, "the good
Duke," as they loved to call him, their debt to whom,
they averred, as with honeyed words they bowed him
across their frontier, would be inadequately expressed
were they to raise a statue to him on every peak of
their mountain land.

This was in 1 63 7. Fifteen years before the League-
land had entered on a hard experience. A humiliat-
ing settlement at Milan had seemed to rivet on it the
yoke of Austria, who was to occupy the passes and
quarter garrisons in the villages for twelve years.
Baldiron, a harsh though able man, was appointed
governor. Hardly a pretence at just government
was made ; yet so corrupted was the national temper
by party strife, and so broken by long disaster, that
neither outrage nor spoliation seemed able to rouse
the old heroism. At length, as though in mere
wantonness of despotism, Baldiron was directed to
banish the evangelical pastors from the Prattigau,
and place the population under the tutelage of the
Capuchins, the most fanatic and most illiterate of
the orders of Rome, singular disciples of the gentlest
of saints. The prospect of seeing the sinister pointed
hoods in the churches of their fathers appeared a last
and intolerable indignity, and a wave of passionate
indignation swept over the land. A general uprising

was headed by Rudolph de Salis, seconded by Jiirg

The Upper Engadine

Jenatsch, a pastor who in the wild times had taken
up the sword. For a moment it seemed as though
the desperate effort might succeed. Trusting to the
spell of terror that they had cast over the desolated
land, the Austrians had reduced their garrisons to
mere skeletons, which were overpowered before they
could concentrate. Even the fiery Baldiron recog-
nised that resistance was for the moment hopeless,
and capitulated at Chur. The ancient confederation
of the leagues was solemnly renewed. Help was
promised from Switzerland, Venice, and the Nether-
lands, but it came slowly and in driblets, and, mean-
while, Baldiron reappeared in overwhelming strength.
The small and ill-equipped force of de Salis made a
dogged resistance, but was slowly pressed back and
dispersed.

The Austrian army then commenced a merciless
progress through the land, and a great fear fell on
the people as they saw amid the plumes and helms of
the leaders, the hoods of the hated Capuchins. AH
previous records of barbarity were outdone. Old
men, women, and children were aimlessly butchered ;
every village was sacked and burnt to the ground.
On the 6th September the hard conditions of peace
were laid down. The Val Munster, Lower Engadine,
and Prattigau were annexed to Austria. In the rest
of the Leagueland the Bishop of Chur was reinstated
in his ancient rights ; Protestantism was proscribed,
and the churches made over to the Capuchins.

In this darkest hour of the forces that fought for

With Foreign Help

freedom, help came from hands which might have
still seemed red with the gruesome work of St
Bartholomew's Eve. True to the cynical French
policy of the time, which neglected no weapon that
could serve its turn, Richelieu, having compacted all
the lesser states of Europe into a great machine for
breaking the Austro-Spanish domination, appealed
to the most illustrious of his Huguenot enemies, the
Due de Rohan, then in exile at Venice, to captain
their motley host. De Rohan, one of the most
brilliant soldiers, and one of the loftiest and most
lovable characters of the day, readily consented.
He at once obtained complete ascendancy over the
ill-assorted allies, and with masterly soldiering cleared
the Austrians and Spaniards out of the Leagueland
and the Valtelline, where they had seemed firmly
established.

It was soon clear, however, that Richelieu had
not set half Europe by the ears to win the Valtelline
for the leagues. Its control by France was as a
two-edged sword in her hand, keeping the way
between Austria and Spain, which she would not
readily lay down; and the instructions sent to
Rohan showed that the little state was to have a
predominant partner, with conditions that reduced
its sovereignty to a name. The feeling of bitter dis-
appointment, and distrust of their great ally, was
aggravated by the stipulated military pay from
France being hopelessly in arrear. Then it was

that, under the guidance of Jiirg Jenatsch, the

The Upper Engadine

leagues determined to show the great cardinal that
duplicity was a game that two could play at.

They certainly played it thoroughly. Jenatsch,
the ex-evangelical preacher, the fiery leader of reform,
the ardent partisan of the French connection and
the life-long enemy of Austria, the trusted lieutenant
of the chivalrous Rohan, decided that the interests
of his country could best be served by a reversal
of its whole policy, and the renunciation of all its
engagements.

Thinking that his plans could be best promoted
by a change of faith, he publicly abjured the reformed
doctrines, and professed those of Rome. Then,
utilising the passports he held from Rohan, he
passed with a legation through the bewildered posts
of the allies to Innsbruck, where he settled the basis
of a treaty with Austria.

All this time Rohan was lying ill at Sondrio.
As soon as he learnt what was passing, he travelled
over the passes in a litter to Chur, only to find
the situation hopeless. The concerted rising against
the French took place; tardy concessions from
France, which Rohan had been earnestly pressing
on Richelieu, came too late ; nothing was left him
but to submit to the disarmament of his troops
and lead them out of the land that he had delivered.

This was on the sth of May 1637. On the 25th,

a treaty, based on the Innsbruck agreement^ was

concluded at Milan. The leagues obtained the

coveted sovereignty of the Valtelline, subject to

Jiirg Jenatsch

the passage of Austrian and Spanish troops and
the proscription of Protestantism. Within the
Leagueland itself religion was to be free. The
Lower Engadine and the Eight Jurisdictions were to
be released from all Austrian claims for a payment
afterwards fixed at 858,000 francs. The devastated
country contrived to raise the large sum, and in
1748 the Miinsterthal also was redeemed from
Austria for 170,000 francs.

Jenatsch is a good example of the extent to which
the question of the Valtelline had hypnotised the
statesmanship, and even the moral sense, of the
Rhaetians. Revolting though his conduct seems, he
was yet no vulgar traitor. He would probably have
said with Cavour that he had done for his country
what none but a scoundrel would do for himself; we
may think his patriotism misguided, but we cannot
refuse to recognise its whole-heartedness. Other
men have given for their country life and fortune,
but Jenatsch gave repute and honour, and plighted
word, nay even, he very likely thought, his immortal
souL There seems no doubt that he was a convinced
and ardent Protestant; when he abjured the faith
of a lifetime, and professed doctrines that he did
not believe, he probably felt that he was guilty of
deadly sin, but he deemed his country's good
demanded it, and what was his paltry soul that
its salvation should stand in the way? Like a
better man before him, he was ready to be accursed
for his brethren's sake.

The Upper Engadine

Thus by dint of blood poured out like water and

intrigue that knew no scruple, at the price of

impoverishment, humiliation and indescribable

suffering, the leagues were once more masters of

the Valtelline. They remained so for about two

hundred years, governing it not unjustly nor harshly,

as government went in those days, though, of course,

alien rule based on force was diametrically opposed

to the principles of their own national existence.

In 1797, Napoleon, in the course of setting Europe

to rights on the principle of liberty backed by bayonets,

intimated to the various little Alpine republics that

bailiwicks must cease. He was willing to deal with

the Valtelline as with Vaud, constituting it a fourth

league, federated with the others, the whole to be

ultimately incorporated in the Helvetic Republic.

The three Rhaetian leagues could not make up their

minds whether they would have this or not, the

Protestant element dreading the introduction of such

a large and purely Catholic district. While they

were hesitating and debating. Napoleon decided

that time was up, and on the 22nd of October 1797,

by a stroke of the pen conferred the coveted territory

on the Cis-Alpine Republic which he had created.

With the rest of that short-lived state, it became in

1 80s part of the not much longer lived kingdom of

Italy, of which the great Corsican was king. In

181 s it was assigned to Austria, and after half a

century in her hands its long history of being bandied

about from one alien ruler to another was closed by

Napol

eon

its assuming^ its natural place as part of the kingdom
of Italy. The Swiss, however, cannot forget that
the magnificent heritage was lost to the Confedera-
tion by the characteristic inability of the Rhaetians
to make up their minds.

The question of the Valtelline was not the only
one in which the leagues failed to fall in with the
views of their masterful protector. Napoleon desired
that they should accept what seemed their natural
destiny by becoming part of the Helvetic Republic.
Entry into the Swiss Confederation had been an
obvious step over which they had been hesitating
through the three centuries of their national life.
But now it was not the familiar, neighbourly con-
federation, but the "Helvetic Republic, one and
indivisible," a title of which the foreign flavour, and
the suggestion of irrevocability, were alike repugnant
to the Rhaetian mind. Its recommendation by a
masterful outsider did not add to its chances of
adoption by the popular vote to which the question
was submitted. The French are adepts at manipu-
lating plebiscites, but in this case they had to do
with a population among whom the principle of the
modern nostrum had been domesticated for centuries,
with the disconcerting result that a plebiscite expressed
the wishes of the people, and not the will of authorities.
A majority of the communes decided against entry
into the republic, and the autocratic democrat, not
choosing to have this irresponsible little factor in his

European equation, sent an army for their political

33 £

The Upper Engadine

education. Thereupon, Austria and Russia sent
others, with the unwonted mission of upholding
popular rights, and the little state became a cockpit
for the battle of its would-be benefactors. Ultimately
the discomforts of protection, and the manifest
impossibility of standing alone^ induced the popula-
tion to acquiesce quietly in the "Act of Mediation"
of 1 8 1 3, since which Graubiinden has been a canton
of the Swiss Confederation. The inhabitants have
never regretted the position, indeed they express their
satisfaction with it by speeches and fireworks on
the I St of August every year, but it may be doubted
if they would have ever assumed it had they been
left to themselves.

With some changes in terminology, the constitu-
tion has remained very much what it always had
been, and any modifications have been made by the
people themselves. It is among the most democratic
in Switzerland, but nowhere is the body politic more
stable or more satisfied. 1 1 may be averred, indeed,
that this is but self-satisfaction — always a con-
servative element — for the Biindners can say with
truth : "ZV/a/, c'est nous'' Nowhere has the popular
will been so universally brought to bear on public
affairs; every man over twenty is a voter: any
proposal initiated by 3000 voters must be submitted
to the people: such submission is automatic in the
case of constitutional changes, legislation, govern-
ment conventions, procedure for putting federal laws

into execution (where such procedure is not provided

Constitution

by the law itselO* and proposals of the Grand Council
involving a capital outlay of 100,000 francs, or an
annual expenditure of 30,000 francs.

The whole population is, in fact, in permanent
committee for the management of its own affairs.
The people themselves discharge the function of a
second chamber, while possessing the authority that
popular election usually gives more amply to the
first ; at the same time, the last word of the constitu-
tion rests with them : it is as though the whole
British electorate were made members of the House
of Peers and invested with the prerogatives of the
Crown,

Coincident with this is the federal tie, giving in
flagrant form that double sovereignty which to the
academic jurist seems a contradiction in terms. The
fact that it is so makes it an admirable expression of
the spirit of Swiss polity. The fundamental con-
tradiction is repeated over and over in details.
Throughout the political machinery are arrangements
which logically should produce deadlock, but which
practically work without a hitch.

It may be questioned whether a constitution such
as that of Graubiinden would be practicable in a
larger and more complex community. It certainly
would not be so without the long antecedent educa-
tion of the history during which it has been evolved,
and by which tolerance and compromise have been
woven into the national fibre. Undoubtedly, where

practicable, it results in a stability and contentment,

The Upper Engadine

a conservative progress, a wholesome and educative
interest in public affairs, which are worth far more
to a people than administrative efficiency, though
there is no reason to think that, in the present case,
such efficiency has been sacrificed.

." •:

• • •

CHAPTER II

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

One is somewhat surprised to see inscribed over the
post-stables at Silvaplana :

ILLE TERRARUM MIHI PRiETER OMNES ANGULUS RIDET.

Surprised, because we do not ordinarily think of

stables or the postal service as haunts of classic

culture, but those who know the Upper Engadine

will deem that, though he who put these words of

Horace there, did so with special reference to

Silvaplana, they aptly express their feeling about

the whole district : there is something about that

high-lying, broad-stretched valley, which gives it a

peculiar, and quite individual place in the geography

of memory.

This, as I have said, is to those who know it.

More than most holiday resorts, it needs knowing.

An artist of my acquaintance who went there left

next day, saying there was nothing for him to do.

The scenery is not of the dramatic, overmastering

sort that takes the beholder by storm, and imprints

The Upper Engadine

itself indelibly on his mind. It has seemed good to
the artist to give us examples of some such scenes
in the illustrations of this book, and it needs but
the most casual turning of the leaves to see
that the Engadine has nothing to compete with
them. It has no imperial dome like that which
looms above the valley of Chamonix, amid chaotic
wildernesses of ice and snow ; no austerely graceful
pyramid, such as stands b>^ Zermatt in stern aloof-
ness from the giants that ring it round ; no range of
shining peaks with the superb serenity and repose of
those that are set over the romantic vales of the two
Lutschines ; none of its highways wind under
dazzling snows such as tower in unforgettable
magnificence above the Stelvio Pass. He who, in
debating in which of the well-known haunts of
Switzerland he will pass his holiday, turns fondly to
the Upper Engadine, has to admit that he can give
no better reason for his preference than that which
Montaigne gave for loving his friend, and say that
it is because he is he, and it is it. The reason is
quite sufficient for himself, but he does not expect it
to convince another ; still less will he ask an artist to
portray, or a writer to describe, that compelling
charm.

A newcomer entering the Upper Engadine in
the usual way, after slowly winding up a valley,
which can hardly be matched in picturesque variety,
and passing through the tunnel under the Albula,

may almost feel that he has passed from the romantic

€■
%0

closer Acquaintance

to the commonplace. Nor, as he proceeds, will the
impression be greatly changed. There is about the
scenery, as seen from train or post, a sombre
monotony that seldom rises into grandeur, and
rarely relaxes into prettiness. In truth, it is not
scenery to be seen from train or post. There are
places in which one would wish always to be a new-
comer, of which the first view strikes with a rapture
that no after acquaintance quite equals. But the
Engadine is not of these. She reserves all her
charms for her own familiar friends. The newcomer
must have become one of them before he feel it.
Slowly but surely the Engadine will weave her spell
around him. She will lead him over flowery slopes,
by long lakes of the valley, through far-stretched
labyrinths of hoary forest, which seem survivals of
an earlier world, amid chaotically strewn rocks,
splintered and riven, as though from some battle of
the Titans, yet so decked with verdure and blossom
as to suggest not ruin but repose. She will take
him where little tarns sleep in the great lap of the
mountain and flashing cataracts festoon -the cliffs,
and, yet above these, into a great white world of
light and loveliness, that he may know that, though
he but rarely see them from highway and hotel, she
too has her shining domes and mystic peaks shut
away from lower earth in unspeakable serenity.
And, when he would rest and dream, she will couch
him on springy undergrowth in spacious shade,

beneath interwoven boughs, which the deep blue

The Upper Engadine

heaven seems to touch, where he can hear the lapping
of water on the crag, and see its green glint between
giant stems. She will show him quaint and ancient
homes of men, which appear to have dreamed away
the centuries where they stand, looking more a
feature of the landscape than the handiwork of
man. And all the while, and everywhere, she will
steep his senses in an air which makes mere living a
delight.

All this the Engadine will do if time be given her
to have her way, but, meanwhile, it were vain to
tell that disappointed newcomer that he would do
well to be fascinated.

We have supposed him to enter the valley, as

most do, by the Albula tunnel. The first village

he will come to is Bevers ; probably he will not get

out there ; if he be pressed for time, it is hardly worth

while to get out. But if he be one of those happy

travellers who have neither goal nor itinerary, who

are not hampered by the necessity, nor haunted by

the ambition, of getting to a certain place by a certain

day, nor of doing a given area of country in a given

time, if, happier still, he do not depend on post or rail,

but, on emerging from the tunnel at Spinas, have

taken to his feet, or, perchance, taken his wheel out

of the luggage-van and coasted at his leisure down

the gentle slope to Bevers, crossing, recrossing, and

accompanying the pellucid and babbling Beverin, he

may well loiter for half an hour in the village and

make a first acquaintance with the quaint old

Bevers

Engadine buildings, which are one of the charms of
the valley.

In the single street of Bevers, which widens at
its upper end into an irregiilar square, are some
excellent specimens. The oralis are about a yard
thick, broadening towards the ground ; this spread-
ing out at the base, like the trunk of a tree, gives a
comfortable, established look to the Engadine house,
fy suis, fy reste, " Tm here to stay," it seems to
assert, and the dates on many of them show that
they have stayed for several centuries. A character-
istic aspect is given by the numerous small, deep-set
windows, their painted shutters opening against the
splay of the wall ; the apertures are faced with pro-
jecting iron gratings, bowed in their lower half, and
often elaborate examples of smithwork. The good
old times must have afforded very imperfect security
to life and property in the valley, to judge from the
careful guarding of every opening. As characteristic
as these deep-set windows, are those that project in
an angle, with a tapering roof, flattened back to the
wall and often quaintly bowed and curved; some-
times they are so rude as almost to seem hewn out of
a protruding stone, at others elaborately carved and
ornamented.

As a rule, the basement is a dep6t for carts and

agricultural implements, and is entered by a broad

arch in front, over which on either side flights of

steps lead to the principal door, which is often much

carved and panelled and fitted with excellent iron-

41 F

The Upper Engadine

work. Throughout the valley the old iron-work is
of very high quality, both in workmanship and
design, and specimens of modern work which were
shown me by Signur Hartmann at St Moritz prove
that the hand of the Engadiner smith has not for-
gotten its cunning ; only a demand is necessary for
the work of to-day to be a worthy continuation of the
past.

About two-thirds of the house are usually devoted
to stables below and hay-loft above, though these
sometimes form a separate building. The stables
have deep-set, square windows, with the inevitable
iron grating, as though it were feared that cows
might escape, or be abstracted through them. The
hay above is ventilated by openings, 20 to 30 feet
high, arched at the top, filled in with ruddy, deep-
hued pine or larch, perforated in good designs.

The unhewn stone of the building is coated with
plaster, drab- or white-washed, decorated with con-
ventional architectural fresco in brown or grey. The
effect is quaint and pleasing, but undoubtedly plaster,
without which the unhewn stone would not exclude
damp, is, as regards appearance, the weak point of
Engadine architecture. We English, who can hardly
dissociate an old building from grey stone or mellow
brick, tattered and worn by weather, and touched
with a thousand delicate shades by moss and lichen,
or who remember the deep and tender hues that
time has laid on old timber chalets in other parts

of Switzerland, cannot but regret that here man

Old Houses

builds with material on which time can never have its
perfect work, which knows hardly any mean between
crude newness and shabby dilapidation. We realise
what is lost when we look from the walls of the
Engadine house to its roof This is usually of
irregularly shaped slabs of schist, covered with rich-
tinted, tawny lichen, forming a delicious note of
colour in the landscape.

The houses are as characteristic within as
without. I know no more charming interior than
that of the well-to-do Engadine peasant. The walls
and ceilings are panelled with the arolla or cembra
pine, often elaborately carved, and having a pleasant,
resinous odour. One side of the room is occupied by
a sort of glorified dresser, a complex array of shelves
and drawers and cupboards, suggestive, I know not
with what truth, of highly organised housekeeping.
In one corner is a great stone stove, screened with
open woodwork, that terminates above in a balustrade
round the top of the stove, on which, it is said, the
children slept in winter. Between the stove and the
wall, a little staircase mounts to a trap door in the
ceiling, opening into the bedrooms above, which
thus, in severe weather, could be entered without
passing through the outer draughts. Very notable
is the excellence of all the metal work ; the elaborate
locks and hinges are often a perfect study.

Many of the older kitchens are fine subjects for

an artist — ^vaulted rooms, black with the smoke of

centuries. Above the open fireplace is a huge

The Upper Engadine

Stone hood, up which a certain portion of the smoke
finds its way, the rest devoting itself to the sombre
decoration of the interior.

Just beyond the lower end of the village is a
house of the de Salis, a family famous in the history
of the valley, Rudolf de Salis, whose leading part
in the desperate rising against Austrian tyranny in
1622 has been already mentioned, is often called the
second founder of the state. Those who have
explored the neighbourhood of Chur will remember
the beautiful renaissance palace belonging to the
family near Zizers. The Hotel Wylly at Soglio
was another of their palaces, and it is interesting to
note aroUa among the more careless southern foliage
in the ruinate park ; the Engadine family evidently
wished to have around them the stately tree
characteristic of their native valley.

An inscription on the house at Bevers records that

it was built in the sixteenth century, and restored

in 1895 by the architect Hartmann, of whose

accomplished son I shall have occasion to speak

later. The old style has been perhaps more

followed in detail than in spirit, but the most

casual passer-by cannot fail to notice the beautiful

letter-box in wrought iron let into the massive wall ;

so far as I know, it has never occurred to any one,

except in this little village, that a letter-box might

as well be beautiful as ugly. A curious sundial on the

wall is, if one may judge from its figures, only able

to improve the shining hours from mid- day to four.

Chesa-de-Salis

By the kindness of Signur de Salis, my wife and
I were shown over the house, which is a museum
of beautiful old furniture. Specially notable is a
large old stove of blue and white earthenware in the
drawingf-room. Between it and the wall steps lead
up to a seat all in the same earthenware, and then
ascend to a room above.

Except that it has the obviousness of which
philologists bid us beware, there seems no reason not
to accept the derivation of Bevers which connects
it with the Italian bevero, the late Latin bibrum.
The name of the village is said to be found as
Beverum as far back as 1139. At the commence-
ment of the era, the beaver was much more diffused
throughout Europe than now ; moreover, the word
appears to have been applied to the otter, which is
said still Xo be found in the Beverin, the stream
which- descends to the Inn from glaciers at the head
of the valley; the wary, night-roaming creatures
may exist in considerable numbers without their
human neighbours having much knowledge of them,
especially in a district in which there are few mud
banks on which their spoor would be impressed.
The acceptance of the reformation by the Engadine
doubtless conduced to the peacefulness of their lives,
for the Roman church classed them with fish as
food for fast days.

The charming Val Bevers is very interesting to

the naturalist. If my hypothetical visitor who

coasted down the lower reach of it did so in June,

The Upper Engadine

he could not have failed to note, even from his saddle,
the unwonted appearance of Alpine flowers in the
flat lush meadows by which he passed. Amid
meadow grass, rampion, and ox-eyed daisies, he
can gather Alpine clover, mountain asters, arnica,
androsace obtusifolia, gentiana nivalis, veronica
alpina, and the like. Seeing these wild mountain
plants, for which elsewhere one has to search high
and far, thus domesticated in homely fields, strikes
one with something of the surprise felt by the
prophet when he saw the lion of the future eat straw
like the ox.

Near Spinas, where the rail enters the tunnel,
the valley turns southward and forms a profound
furrow separating the small mountain block which
rises into the Piz Ot, from the main chain of the
Piz d'Err. The latter is represented on the west by
the grim, granite line of the Crasta Mora, "the
black ridge," whose indented edge and creviced sides
are a favourite haunt of the golden eagle and
smaller birds of prey.

Here the last bear killed in the district was shot
by the famous hunter Spinas, who wounded it near
Tiefenkastel and tracked it for three days, finally
coming up with it in the Val Bevers.

The valley terminates in a vast amphitheatre

whence the Beverin has its sources in the Flex, Err,

Fienogl and Trentoveras glaciers. All these lie

high above on the edge of the great terraces which

cradle the ice-field feeding them. This eastern side

Val Bevers

of the Err mass is a striking contrast to the western
face, on whose abrupt, steep sides hardly any
accumulation of ice is possible.

The glaciers that overhang the head of the Val
Bevers are but shrunken relics of the one great
tongue in which they all once converged, and which
stretched to the mighty ice-stream that creaked and
groaned and rumbled lethargically down the valley,
where now flashes the thin white thread of the
impetuous Inn. All the way are to be noticed
records of that great tongue ; specially noticeable are
the old terminal moraines, which mark its several
halts in its slow retreat to the high mountain fast-
nesses where still the ice-king holds his own.

A ramble up the Val Bevers can be pleasantly
prolonged over the Fuorcla Suvretta to Campfer,
where two high roads and various paths lead in a
little over a mile to St Moritz and the rail.

CHAPTER III

SAMADEN

The rail and road turn south-west at Bevers, and in
two miles and a half take us to Samaden. There
are fine views on the left : in the foreground are flat
meadows seamed with the sinuous blue ribbon of
the Inn ; above these flats stretch the sombre Fulun
and Choma forests; on the right the broad cleft
head of the Piz Margna blocks the end of the valley ;
left of it gleam the snowy masses of the Tschierva,
Bernina, and Palu peaks; nearer to us is the Piz
Rosatsch, while still more to the left, sentinelled by
the famous Piz Languard, is the entrance to the
Bernina valley, the long line of the Pontresina
villages lying on its threshold.

Administratively, Samaden is the chief village of
the Upper Engadine. It contains many picturesque
examples of typical Engadine architecture, among
others the present Krone Inn, beside which is a fine
house of the Plantas, one of the most ancient families
of the valley, whose name is writ large on almost
every page of its history. Dr Ernest Lechner, in

Chesa-Planta

Das Oberengadin, a book full of curious learningf,
brightened with poetry and humour, gives an interest-
ing account of the family. They are said to have
come from Italy near the commencement of the
Christian Era, In the thirteenth century they
succeeded the Lords of Ponte Sarazeno, now
Pontresina, as stewards of the Bishop of Chur, who
had by that time acquired territorial rights over the
whole of the Upper Engadine. A Planta commanded
the contingent supplied by the Upper Engadine to
the army of the three leagues in the war of indepen-
dence» and led the flank attack which decided the
day at Calven. From that time onward members
of the family always occupied important positions
in the Free State and in the bailiwick of the Valtelline,
and earned unenviable, but by no means solitary,
notoriety in the civil strife and foreign intrigue entailed
by that fateful acquisition. They and the de Salis,
of one* of whose houses I spoke at Bevers, were the
respective heads of the rival factions which in latter
times were known as the Patriots and the Father-
landers or Oldleaguers, and may be broadly described
as the Whigs and Tories of Rhaetian politics.
Engadiner-like, the family have migrated widely;
numbers of them have risen to high position in
many European armies, and in the latter half of the
eighteenth century Joseph Planta, a "humanist"
in the controversy of the time, and a philologist of
note, was head librarian of the British Museum.

His son took to politics, and was some time an

49 G

The Upper Engadine

English minister. A lady of the name is mentioned
by Fanny Burney as in the household of Queen
Charlotte.

The house is a fine example of the more important
domestic architecture of the valley. It has the
massive walls, the wide, round-arched entrance door,
the numerous deep-set windows, protected by
wrought iron gratings, which have been seen on
a humbler scale at Bevers.

It is as interesting inside as out. I was once

fortunate enough to be taken over it by the old

housekeeper, who had lived there forty-seven years,

and knew the history of every corner of it, and of

every stick of its furniture. Many of the rooms

are tapestried ; I specially remember one little

drawing-room, panelled half-way up, the upper half

hung with some quaint old fabric, a floral pattern of

rich blue velvet on a ground of drab linen. In this,

as in many of the other rooms, was a fine old stove

in blue-and-white earthenware. The most beautiful

stove in the house, however, was one in a small room

on the left of the principal entrance, which is said to

have come from a monastery in Aargau ; among the

many crowded figures painted on its tiles, were

various saints and allegorical representations of the

material elements and the moral virtues : a most

rich and pleasing piece of colour. Very pleasing, too,

was the quaint painting of the doors, both those of

the cupboards in the massive walls, and those in the

deep-panelled embrasures between the rooms.

churches

St Peters at Samaden has long had a sort of
primacy among the churches of the Upper Engadine,
and has many representative functions. At dawn on
Easter Day its bells alone in the valley peal out the
glad tidings of the festival, and I am told that in the
clear air, and at that quiet hour, their sonorous tones
can be heard throughout its entire length. Its walls
bear the date 1491, but this must refer only to the
rebuilding of the nave when the growth of the
population required a larger church, or after one of
the many fires by which, at one time or another,
ruthless foe or careless friend has destroyed every
village in the valley ; the Romanesque tower must
have been built as far back as the tenth or eleventh
century.

In England the church is usually the most

interesting building in the village, but this is not so

in Samaden, and is seldom the case in Switzerland.

There are old churches in plenty, but both care and

neglect have combined to denude them of nearly all

the interesting features which the bell towers often

show that they must have possessed. These towers,

frequently capped with good stone spires, retain

traces of excellent work, romanesque and gothic, but,

even here, it is rare that the old tracery has not

been ruthlessly removed.

Protestantism is often blamed for this vandalism,

but I do not think that in Switzerland there is much

to choose between the two persuasions ; such

difference as there is, is somewhat of the nature of

The Upper Engadine

that expressed in two different estimates of George
the Fourth. Some one remarked that he had no
taste. "On the contrary," said another, "he has
a great deal of taste, but it's bad." Swiss Protestants
and Catholics have alike ruthlessly obliterated the
past. I am not sure that I do not prefer the bare
and cold interiors by which the former fondly think
they "typify the purity and simplicity of the Gospel,"
to the profusion of gaudy ornament and tawdry decora-
tion which represent the "aesthetic appeal " of Rome.
It is pleasant to notice that of late years several
small churches have been built in Switzerland which
are excellent examples of the old style without being
servile imitations. The little church at Rennaz, a
Vaudois hamlet, that of Rothenbach in the
Emmental, and the Chapel of Pregny near Geneva,
may be mentioned as instances. The charming
church and many other buildings constructed in all
too fugitive "staff" for the Geneva Exhibition of
1896, showed that if modern Swiss architecture
leaves much to be desired, it is not for lack of
architects imbued with the spirit of the old styles.
Unfortunately, those who pay the piper insist on
calling the tune, little competent though they may
be to do so. As a Swiss architect once said to me,
" Were I to suggest to one of my clients requiring
an hotel a plan that would commend itself to you or
me, he would show me the door. You might as
well send your publisher a poem when he asked you
for a guide-book."

Piz Ot

No one who is equal to a somewhat stiff walk
should leave Samaden without getting the superb
view from the Piz Ot. It is little, if at all, inferior to
that from the more famous Languard, which overtops
it by some fifty feet. The latter part of the walk was
formerly rather an arduous undertaking, but through
the liberality and public spirit of the veteran botanist,
Signur Krattli of Bevers, iron rods have been fixed
in the most awkward places. From the church of St
Peters a bridle-path mounts in zigzags to the Valetta
da Samaden, a deep amphitheatre, strewn with the
wreckage of the grim peaks around, showing many
traces of the glacial action, which commenced the
work of denudation that wind, rain, sun and frost
are still busily prosecuting, wasting and wearing
down the ** everlasting hills." Thus are the weak
things of the earth elected to confound the things
that are mighty. Turning to the left up the Valetta,
the bridle-road ends at the Fontauna fraida, whence
a steep path takes us up the final pyramid. I will
not attempt to describe the view from the summit.
The panorama from the Languard given by the in-
valuable Baedeker enables one to identify most of its
details. On the south-east the Bernina group towers
in all its splendour, with the noble peaks of the
Disgrazia to the right of it. Still more to the right
one looks up the chain of Upper Engadine lakes,
while, almost due east, is seen the whole length of the
Bernina Valley, with the twin black and white lakes

lying on the pass at its head. Turning west, one

The Upper Engadine

looks over the serrated battlements of Crasta Mora

into the Albula Valley; beyond which, as indeed

on all sides, a crowded array of mountains rise like

the billows of a sea.

Disraeli makes Coningsby speak of a view from a

summit in the Jura as a sight for which he will ever

thank God. This is just the feeling when one is

fortunate enough to be on some commanding point

of view such as the Piz Ot on a clear day. Indeed,

except in the all too frequent cases in which, after

toiling to the top, one finds it wrapt in cloud, with

the view exactly the same as that to be enjoyed on a

foggy day in Fleet Street, there is no weather in

which a mountain view has not some peculiar charm.

Perhaps the most unforgettable effects are those seen

on a stormy day, on which one has feared till the last,

that the toil would be in vain. It is no occasion for

identifying details from a panorama, for half the

landscape is blotted out in palls of purple cloud,

through which the mountains loom like monstrous

phantoms : others are transfigured in lurid light.

The hoarse roar of gathering torrents swells and

sinks : the wind shrieks and howls like a Titan in

torment. Far below, town and forest, rock and hill

and valley, show dim and ghostly in whirling mist, or

are clad in strange, unearthly hues by the wizardry

of the stormlight, through which lakes and rivers

gleam like molten metal. All things seem changed,

mystic, portentous, standing out in strong contrast

of shifting gloom and splendour.

Walks near Samaden

The neighbouring Piz Padella does not command
so fine a view, but is interesting geologically and
botanically. It and the three peaked ridge of the
Trais Fluors or, "three flowers," which connects it
with the Piz Ot, are of limestone, occasionally dolo-
mitic. Very remarkable is the intercalation, in a
region of crystalline rock, of this calcareous streak
which, with occasional triassic patches, runs hence
by the Suvretta Pass to the Corn Alv and Piz
Bardella. Pleasant rambles may be made, turning
to the left shortly before reaching the Valetta, over
the gentle slopes of pasture which lie to the south
and west, below the furrowed limestone precipices of
the Padella and Trais Fluors.

Other pleasant walks around Samaden — how
many and how pleasant they are — to the hill of
Silvaplana, where are tombstones of Plantas, de
Salis, Juvaltas, and other great folk of the valley :
to the wooded spur of the Christolais, the larch-clad
Miinteratsch, and on to the Val Bevers — are they not
written in the book of Baedeker ?

CHAPTER IV

CELERINA AND CRESTA

A MILE beyond Samaden lies Celerina, and a litde
further Cresta, the two now virtually forming one
village. Walkers may reach it from Samaden by
various pleasant detours on the hill-side, a character-
istic bit of which forms the foreground of one of the
sketches. The snow-topped mountain towering in
the background is the Piz Albriz, the glacier seen on
its northern side is somewhat unfairly named the
Vadret da Languard, as though it had been purloined
from the much-mounted companion peak. On the
right is a buttress of the massive and sombre Piz
Chalchagn, and on the left are larch-clad slopes rising
to the many famous points of view which form one of
the attractions of the three delightful villages known
as Pontresina. These are seen in the sketch at the
entrance of the Bernina valley, the Choma and
Fulun forest, "a boundless contiguity of shade,"
stretching below them. At the edge of the forest,
standing lonely in the meadows, is the half-ruined
little church of San Gian. In the flat green floor of

• #

The Flaz and the Inn

the valley near it the Inn rests in clear pools and

quiet reaches after its furious descent through the

beautiful Charnadura gorge which it has carved for

itself in the transverse ridge that long dammed it up

in a larger lake than at present. At no distant time,

as time goes in such matters, these swamps and lush

meadows must also have been a lake which extended

down to Cinuskel, but which has been partly drained

off by the deep gorge cut by the Inn in yet another

transverse ridge at its lower end, partly filled up by

alluvial deposits of its affluents. Of these the most

important is the Flaz, which is seen in the sketch

descending from Pontresina, turbid with "the dust

of continents to be," bringing down a larger volume

of water than that of the Inn, in which, after its

junction, its name and individuality are lost.

This is the hard fate to which rivers are liable. The

Inn itself has to submit to it later. At Passau its

volume, in summer at any rate, is larger than that of

the stream from the Black Forest which it joins, yet

the voice from which there is no appeal has decided

that the great river of south-eastern Europe shall be

known as the Danube, and not as the Inn. Perhaps

the most flagrant instance of this usurpation is

given by another Swiss river, the Rhone, which is an

interloper through the whole of its long course, a

very Jacob among rivers, continually supplanting

its elder brethren. After its bend northward at

Martigny, there is hardly any distance in which it

has made its own bed. This bend takes it into the

67 H

The Upper Engadine

bed of the Dranse, and the older and larger river has
thenceforth to pass under its name. It afterwards
takes possession successively of the channels which
the Valserine, Guiers and Ain had made for them-
selves long before the Rhone had cut through
the transverse ridge beyond Geneva; and finally
invades the venerable and peaceful Saone, the
ancient Arar, with whose excessive tranquillity we
most of us made acquaintance in boyhood from
Caesar's statement that it was impossible to tell by
the eye in which direction it flowed. This last inva-
sion seems especially hard on the ancient and gentle
river, that had drowsed along its self-made bed for
ages, while the Rhone was erratically wandering
about Europe, first joining the Danube, and then,
in partnership with the Rhine, going north to meet
the Thames in the great plain which now lies beneath
the sea.

The country between Samaden and Celerina offers
other interests than scenery and the unprincipled
procedure of rivers. Passing along the road, we hear
earnest talk, bristling with recondite but familiar
terms, which recall breezy British coasts and
commons : stalwart forms stride across the sward
beyond the river on the left, here and there is a
fluttering skirt, for in this triangle between the
Inn, the Flaz and the road to Pontresina, are the
Samaden golf links, which claim to be the best in
Switzerland.

Just before reaching Celerina is the large new

Inns

Palace Hotel, which it is pleasant to record is not the
outrage on the scenery by which it lives that a large
new hotel too often is. If not quite in the style of
the Engadine, it is at any rate a commendable
attempt to build according to Swiss traditions and
in harmony with its surroundings. I regret that it
calls itself a palace, a word which gives an idea of
comfortless ostentation; but magniloquence is the
weakness of innkeepers, and appears especially
attractive to them in a foreign language. Why
should they, the world over, forswear their mother-
tongue. In every language, save its native French,
the word hotel has something exotic and unhomely
about it; in fact, like many cosmopolitan human
aliens, while it has been naturalised in all civilised
countries, it has not been quite assimilated in any.
Who has not resented in Italy an Albergo Belvedere
calling itself Hotel Bellevue, while it is almost a
shock to find the building which might have com-
bined the promise of good cheer with imperishable
memories, as Gasthof zum Matterhorn, masquerad-
ing under the unsuggestive title of Grand Hotel du
Cervin. As for our English inn, what homely
comfort, what hearty cheer, what cordial hospitality,
does not the word suggest ever since Shenstone
sighed to think that he had found his warmest
welcome there. I am convinced that a great suc-
cess awaits the colossal building, in a good old
English style, which, while offering the most up-to-
date comfort and convenience, shall call itself by

The Upper Engadine

some such homely and engaging name as "The
London Inn."

When we hear that Celerina is almost identical
with cellar, we are apt to suspect one of those
solemn puns to which so much etymology is reduced.
It would seem, however, that, in this case, the
obvious may really be accepted with a quiet mind,
and that the name originates from there having
been here a large storehouse belonging to the see
of Chur, and the residence of an episcopal steward
or cellarius.

With peculiar appropriateness to this etymology,
Celerina is the seat of the Engadine brewery, the
products of which will be commended to the
traveller's attention wherever he may go in the
valley. The praise of this seductive fluid I leave to
its proper advertisements, but in what terms of
eulogy can a writer on the Engadine fitly sing the
praise of him who brews it. Signur Richard
Campell has earned the gratitude of every
Engadiner, and of all who love the Engadine, by
the unique collection of Rhaetian antiquities which
he has amassed with rare taste and knowledge, and
with a lavish expenditure of time and money. I
shall speak more particularly of it, and of the
admirably appropriate building in which Signur
Hartmann has housed it for him, when we come to
St Moritz, but I may here remark that there is a
special fitness in this labour of love being performed
by Signur Campell, for he belongs to a family

The Campells

which was already ancient when the oldest treasure
in his museum was new, and which througfhout its
long history has been honourably connected with
the life of its native state.

The traveller who has entered the Engadine by
the railway will probably have noticed the picturesque
and partly ruined castle of Campi, standing on an
isolated pedestal of rock, rising precipitously from
the Albula and commanding the entrance to the
Schyn Pass; this is their ancestral seat. Here,
during part of his early life, dwelt the famous Duri
Campell, whose Historia Ratica is such a store-
house of information on the history, customs and
topography of the district, that it is a common say-
ing that all subsequent writers have ploughed with
Campells heifer. He was a leading reformer, and
translated the Psalms and a catechism into his native
tongue. He advocated religious plays in the same
language, from which it may be seen that his Pro-
testantism was of that eminently moderate tone
characteristic of his compatriots ; in fact, he had
almost as much controversy with Protestant refugees
from Italy, as with Rome.

An Englishman, or perhaps in this connection,

and with a timely recollection of the auspices under

which my remarks will appear, I should be careful

to say Briton, naturally thinks of the similar name

which has borne so distinguished a part in our

own annals. When one recollects that the oldest

place-names in each country are Celtic, and bears

The Upper Engadine

in mind the connection between names of places and
of families, it is difficult not to suppose that the
Rhaetian and British names are identical

It, of course, by no means follows that the family
trees, which are so deeply rooted in the past of their
respective countries, have a common origin. Signur
Campell, at any rate, knows of nothing to that
effect, and on my mentioning that the present head
of the British house had married the king's sister,
he remarked with a smile, that, though he would be
pleased to claim the connection, he was aware of no
grounds for doing so.

The greater part of Cresta and Celerina was
burnt down on Easter Day 1631, while most of the
inhabitants were keeping the festival at St Moritz.
This, I fancy, was the period when the characteristic
architecture of the valley was at its best, for it is
essentially post-gothic, and we consequently find
here an unusual number of excellent examples
of it.

Though Celerina has now outgrown Cresta, the
latter was originally the more important place, and
the interesting tower of the little church bears witness
to its antiquity. Its parish at the time of the reforma-
tion included St Moritz and Samaden. The priest
Johann Zakkon lived in the parsonage which still
stands by the church, and was a curious illustration
of the divided mind of the Upper Engadine on the
great question of the day. He had given practical

proof of his evangelical disposition by marrying and

Ecclesiastical Comprehension

having a family, but he besought his people to make
no external change of worship while he lived ; his mind,
he said, approved the new teaching, but his old tongue
could not unlearn the sacred office that he had said
so long; let him continue to say it till he died,
then, if it seemed to them good, they might make
a change. He was much too good a man for any
objection to be taken on the score of consistency to
an attitude which was probably that of a large number
of his flock: the Engadiner of the day was not
hampered by the "foolish consistency" that Emer-
son terms the hobgoblin of little minds. So to the
end of Zakkon's long life the use of Cresta exhibited a
large comprehension : he celebrated Mass before the
altar and preached unimpeachable gospel doctrine
from the pulpit. He seems to have felt, however,
that the compromise could be but temporary, for, it
is said, that on his deathbed he exhorted his children
and parishioners to embrace the Reformation.

The walks and excursions from Celerina are, of
course, very much those from Samaden, St Moritz,
and Pontresina, almost equidistant,. as it is, from the
three. One short walk seems peculiarly its own, that
to the half-ruined church of San Gian which was
shown in the sketch last mentioned standing on a
lone, larch-clad hill in the angle between the Flatz
and the Inn. Except for funerals, it is now disused
and fast falling to decay. The church and the higher
of its two towers is Gothic, but this probably took

the place of an older Romanesque building, of which

The Upper Engadine

the smaller tower is the only remnant. On the loth
of June 1682 the large tower was struck by lightning,
the steeple burnt, and the great bell, which, it is said,
could be heard through the whole length of the
Upper Engadine, melted ; the metal sufficed to make
the three present bells of the church of Celerina, that
had then been only lately built. Over the portal of
San Gian is inscribed, " 1478 Magister Gulielmus de
Plurio fecit," but this probably refers to some restora-
tion or enlargement, for Dr Lechner says that an
"ecclesia" here is mentioned in 1320, in the oldest
document among the archives of the commune. The
smaller tower shows that it must have existed earlier
still ; indeed, among the arms painted on the inner
roof are those of the Counts of Gamertingen, who
are said to have had no possessions in the valley
since 11 39. There is something singularly impres-
sive about the abandoned and neglected church,
standing lorn among the tombs on its solitary hill.

A little further on, to the left of the road to Pon-
tresina, shortly before it joins that from Samaden, is
the rocky wooded hill of Chastlatsch, so called from
the remains of an old castle. It would seem to have
been originally of considerable extent, though little
now remains but the torso of the keep. In the old
conditions of warfare its position must have been
most commanding, controlling the main valley above
and below, and the valley of the Bernina.

CHAPTER V

TO ST MORITZ

Between Celerina and St Moritz the railway has

decidedly the advantage over the high-road, passing,

as it does, through the romantic Charnadura gorge

above the raging Inn. Pedestrians will do well to

take this route, a sketch of which, in the bridal array

with which winter decks it, is given. At the upper

end of the gorge is a fine fall, just after which we

reach the lake of St Moritz, the lowest of the

long chain of blue-green lakes which form the

characteristic charm of the upper reaches of the

valley.

Of the four existing lakes, that of St Moritz has

had a far longer individual existence than the others.

Originally it must have filled the basin between the

two transverse bars of rock which lie above and

below it. The bar above, from which it has long

retreated, and which the Inn now cuts through by

the narrow gorge of the Sela, separated it from the

great upper lake which once stretched from the

Maloja to Campfer, while below on the north the

65 I

The Upper Engadine

Ruinatsch and Fulun, not then pierced by the
Charnadura gorge, dammed it off from the lake,
which, far below, extended from Cresta to CinuskeL
The lake of St Moritz shrank with the shrinking
volume of the Inn, as the Maira captured its higher
waters, the evidence of which we shall see when we
come to Maloja, and also from being more and more
drained off by its outflow as it carved down the
gorge of Charnadura.

This way of escape is of comparatively recent
contrivance. For ages the Inn flowed out of the
lake in an easterly direction, by the present Statzer-
See and Choma marsh ; when this exit was denied it
by the extension of the glaciers of the Bernina and
Rosegg valleys, it found its way out on the west,
rioting down from St Moritz to Cresta, very much in
the direction of, though far above, the present famous
toboggan-run. Something ultimately blocked it
there, perhaps a great rock slide, to which a synclinal
valley like that of the Inn is peculiarly liable. There-
upon, as though tired of being thus bandied from
right to left, it took the matter into its own hands,
and commenced piercing for itself the huge dam of
gneiss which kept it from the lower lake. Here,
again, it shows a masterful individuality, not ex-
hibited by its sister lakes ; its shrinkage is not due,
as theirs mainly is, to silting up, but to its own
energetic engineering. The work is still going on
furiously, as may be realised by exploring the
beautiful Charnadura gorge. All along it are

Hotel-land

records of the passage of the river at higher levels
than at present, and of the gradual eating back of the
fine waterfall by which it now issues from the lake.
This fall must, at first, have been at the farther end of
the gorge, near Cresta, where it poured superbly
into the now vanished lower lake. Unless the hand
of man interfere — and it will be a big bit of landscape
gardening to do so — it would seem destined to
eventually eat through the short distance which still
separates it from the lake, and let out the dammed-
up waters, with unlooked-for effects on scenery and
real property.

At present St Moritz appears more occupied with
real property than with scenery. On taking a first
turn round, the attention is not so much drawn to
points of view as to eligible building sites. Everyone
fortunate enough to possess land seems busily pre-
paring to reap from it the golden harvest, that it may
be expected to yield under the fructifying flood of
tourists. I know of no place which so strikes one on
arrival as a town of hotels. On all sides colossal
hotels are being raised, old hotels renovated, small
hotels enlarged, old houses — ^alas, how picturesque
and irreplaceable are many of them — are being pulled
down that hotels may rise in their stead.

In a place that yearly attracts increasing thou-
sands, all this is inevitable, and it were futile to
lament over it. Certainly it is not for the traveller
to do so ; as well might he revile the bridge which
takes him over the stream. And the traveller in the

The Upper Engadine

Engfadine would be indeed ungrateful were he to
deprecate hotels. Nowhere are they so comfortable,
so convenient, so homelike; nowhere does their
machinery work so smoothly in catering, not only for
the needs, but for the fads and fancies of the inmates.
The happy mixture of northern organisation and
southern sympathy, makes the Engadiner a model
innkeeper. But it is permissible to ask these
pleasant and indispensable hosts to have some regard
for the source of their golden eggs. Why should an
hotel be an unsightly outrage on the scenery which
is its raison dHre? Why, of all countries in the
world, should it be so in Switzerland, which offers
such admirable types of building, both large and
small? Not only is the chalet the most charming
example of a peasant home, but all over the land
stand great buildings *' whispering the last enchant-
ment of the Middle Ages," that are as much a local
asset as the scenery amid which they stand, and of
which they seem the completion and the complement.
It is with models such as these at hand, that huge,
mean structures, or grotesque caricatures of noble
models, are raised to house visitors attracted by the
beauty of the land.

Happily there are now signs of better things, and it
is to the credit of Engadiners that they are in the van
of reform. I have already spoken of the Palace
Hotel at Celerina, and, on looking round as one
leaves the station at St Moritz, one of the most

conspicuous of the great buildings that compete for

Heimathschutz

the traveller's presence is another Palace, perhaps a
trifle fantastic and lacking in unity of desigrn, but an
exemplary attempt to recover something of the
traditional freedom and variety of Swiss architec-
ture. It has the advantage of a foil which would
set off a far inferior building ; close beside it is a huge
''Grand Hotel" which has had the distinction of
being selected by that admirable Swiss publication,
" Heimathschutz," as a shocking example of what an
hotel ought not to be.

I take this opportunity of drawing attention to
this society for protesting against, and, in so far as in
it lies, preventing, the disfigurement of Switzerland.
All who love that lovely land should support it.
Annual membership costs but 3 francs, though any
donation towards the good work is welcomed, and
the subscriptions entitle to the interesting and artistic
illustrated monthly " Bulletin." Communications
should be addressed : Secretariat, Heimathschutz,
Basel.

It is not only in the well-meant audacity of the
Palace Hotel that one has in the Engadine an
earnest of better things. In Mr Nichol Hartmann
the valley possesses an architect imbued with the
spirit of its picturesque and characteristic architec-
ture, and with a resource and ingenuity in adapting
it to modern requirements, and utilising existing
conditions, that amounts to genius.

A good example of this is afforded by the bridge-
room into which he has converted a lumber-room in

The Upper Engadine

the basement of the Kulm Hotel : the seductive game
has surely never had a more dignified and charming
shrine. I shall speak of his work in connection with
Signur Campell's Museum at St Moritz and the
Hotel Margna at Sils Baselgia. Before these lines
appear he will have raised at St Moritz another
Hotel Margna, which, to judge from the plans, will
be a noble example of the traditional architecture of
the valley.

CHAPTER VI

ST MORITZDORF

The village of St Moritz, seated on a spur of hill on
the left of the lake, is the highest in the Upper
Engadine, being about 200 feet higher than the
Maloja pass at the end of the valley.

At the highest point of the village is the old
church, now no longer used, whose interesting tower
seems leaning to its fall. The church bears the date
I573> which, however, must be that of its restoration ;
the original structure must belong to the earliest date
of church building in the valley, as is shown by the
excellent pilastered Romanesque windows of the
tower, which are now unfortunately walled up, and
only to be seen from the interior. The inestimable
" Heimathschutz " has pointed a salutary architec-
tural moral by presenting this neglected and dis-
figured tower, with its simple proportions and vestiges
of good work, side by side with that of the neighbour-
ing modern parish church, a painstaking example of
ornate bad taste.

In the Middle Ages the shrine of St Moritz was

The Upper Engadine

much resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of Italy,
and a Bull of Leo X. granted plenary indulgence to
those who made the pilgrimage. If the Church is to
concern herself with "temporal punishments," on
what more rational condition than this could she
remit them ? One can easily imagine that many a
world-worn pilgrim from the crowded town would
find when he arrived at the mountain shrine that his
heart was changed within him and become as the
heart of a little child, and would descend homeward
with a mind set to walk in newness of life. Pre-
sumably he would have been one who wished to turn
over a new leaf, else he would not come within the
purview of the indulgence, and what could be more
conducive to doing so than this retreat into the
mountains? There were not then luxurious hotels
at every stage ; the way would be long and toilsome,
sometimes dangerous; fare and lodging would be
hard ; he would return to his old surroundings with
evil associations broken and evil habits interrupted,
his body braced by exercise and privation, and his
spirit bathed in mountain air, his mind cleaned by
seeing life, and living it, in simple and elemental
conditions. Verily, I believe that, had indulgences
never been attached but to conditions so salutary, a
famous thesis would not have been nailed to the
church door in Wittenburg.

At the time of the Reformation this ancient little
church was the scene of a serio-comic episode which

it would be_hard to match in the annals of ecclesi-

Ecclesiastical Transition

astical history. I have already mentioned, in speak-
ing of Cresta, the personal considerations that led
the aged and beloved priest Zakkon to postpone the
introduction of the new worship till the end of his
long life, with the result that his parish was the
last in the Upper Engadine to formally embrace the
Reformation. At Zakkon s death the two parties in
the St Moritz division of the parish prepared for a
final trial of strength. The adherents of the old
order were unusually strong there, owing to the
importance and profit derived from pilgrimages to
the famous shrine. The narrative of the final
settlement reads more like an account of a school-
boy's game, played under definite rules, than the
history of a religious movement.

There appears to have been a tacit understanding
that victory should fall to the party whose adherents
first succeeded in holding in the church their typical
service, the celebration of the Mass, or the delivery
of a sermon, respectively. Ascension Day 1576 was
fixed for the contest. The Protestants selected as
their champion, Nuot Cheisel, a native of the place,
and a theologian of some standing, who on Ascension
Eve came to stay with his relatives in the village.
At the same time a Catholic priest arrived as
champion of the opposite party. The Protestants
had a certain advantage in the fact that the sacristan,
one Messmer, who kept the keys of the church, was
of their persuasion. He was a man of herculean

strength and stature, who, ordinarily, was the

73 K

The Upper Engadine

mildest of giants, but he became alarmingly trucu-
lent when he had taken a drop too much ; occasionally
after convivial bouts he had been the terror of the
community. The difficulty was to utilise this redoubt-
able reputation without a violation of propriety
which would have been singularly inappropriate to
the occasion. It was felt that Messmer sober would
be quite unequal to any serious resistance to the
authority he was wont to treat with unquestioning
respect He could not be relied on — ^he himself, good
Protestant though he was, would not undertake — not
to open the church when commanded to do so by
any burgher with official position. Never was a more
provoking nullification of a valuable asset : the simple
course of appealing from Messmer sober to Messmer
drunk was not only objectionable in principle, but
would have been to evoke a Frankenstein, whom
they might not have been able to control. At length
the ingenious device was hit upon, that Messmer
should pretend to be drunk, and should trust to the
prestige he had acquired when his natural tempera-
ment was thus disguised, to keep the more important
members of the Catholic party out of the church.
Messmer readily fell in with a plan that promised to
reconcile his religious convictions with his habits of
obedience. On Ascension morning, when some of
the most considered Catholic burghers ordered him
to open the church and ring the bell, he feigned to
be hopelessly intoxicated; entreaties were in vain,

and threats only roused him to an apparently

Ecclesiastical Transition

homicidal fury which kept the boldest at a distance.
The Catholics decided that nothing was left but to
force the door, and forthwith the necessary tools
were sought. But when they arrived at the church
they found the terrible Messmer before it. The
Protestant cause now depended on his ability to
keep up the illusion, and he appears to have developed
dramatic abilities hitherto unsuspected. Swaying
his huge bulk from side to side and swinging his
brawny arms which, it was said, could fell an ox with
one blow of the naked fist, he effectually prevented
any approach to the door during the long hours of
the forenoon. At length the clock striking twelve
announced that the canonical hours for Mass had
expired, and Protestantism was safe.

As soon as sufficient time had elapsed for the
exceptional dinner with which Catholic and Pro-
testant alike honoured the festival that is still
the holiday most widely observed by all sects in
Switzerland, Messmer, now sober as a judge, rang
the bell. The population. Catholic as well as
Protestant, trooped to church, Cheisel delivered
his sermon, and it seems to have been generally
accepted that St Moritz had become Protestant.
It is not perhaps a very edifying episode, but it is
not for Englishmen, whose Protestantism owes so
much to the matrimonial exigencies of Henry VI 1 1.,
to cast a stone at the simple theologians of St
Moritz.

I should add that CheiseFs sermon was not quite

The Upper Engadine

the end of controversy. On leaving the church he
and his supporters met with an energetic protest
from the women of the parish. Throughout Switzer-
land at this time the women were, as a rule, strongly
conservative on the great question of the day, and
were adepts in the expression of theological views
through the medium of domestic utensils. As the
women of Aigle chased Farel from their town, so
those of St Moritz now attacked Cheisel and his
partisans as they issued from the church, with
brooms, shovels, and other solid arguments, accom-
panied by epithets which can only be excused by
the strength of their religious convictions. This,
however, was but an irregular interlude; the less
emotional and more responsible sex abode loyally
by the test agreed on, and St Moritz has remained
Protestant to this day.

If the story of Messmer be true, the strange feature
in it is that the Catholics should have acquiesced in
a question which concerned them so deeply being
decided by a drunken employee. The truth probably
is that here, as elsewhere in the Upper Engadine,
the majority were comparatively indifferent, and
only desirous that the question should be decided
one way or the other, without open conflict or
undue cleavage of communal life. Long before the
Upper Engadine had definitely become Protestant,
the first acrimony of the religious contest had died
away and the controversy had narrowed down to one

of those evenly balanced issues which are wont to be

Badrutt Park

decided by the fall of a coin. The Laodicean state
of mind of the parish may be inferred from the fact
that, not long after, the venerated image of St Moritz
was, by common consent, sold for a substantial sum
to the neighbouring Catholic commune of Puntaglia.
Very different was the treatment meted out to the
sacred relics at Pontresina in 1 549, when, first in the
valley, that commune embraced reform.

Beyond the old church, the hill slopes up to the
Badrutt park, beautifully situated on the rocky
pedestal between the high-road to Cresta and the
Charnadura gorge. Here is provision for the game
and play of golf on ground abounding in speculative
and absorbing possibilities. Few links are set amid
more charming views or in more bracing air.

St Moritz contains a treasure of the last kind
that one would look to find in the highest village
in Europe. At the Palace Hotel is — what shall
I say? — a copy, a replica, the original, for even
that great claim has been made for it — of the
Madonna di San Sisto at Dresden, assuredly the
noblest presentment of motherhood that the world
possesses.

I am not competent to give an opinion on its
technical merits, still less on the vexed question of
its origin, but no one, I think, can see it without
feeling that he is in the presence of a great picture.
By a happy inspiration, it has been placed in the
Ladies' Room, where it must surely awaken a
Magnificat in many a heart

The Upper Engadine

In a sumptuous booklet Sisfnur Badrutt has
collected all the facts, records, and traditions con-
nected with his great possession. It would seem
that the picture is the ''Gonfalone ddla S. R.
Chiesa," which was carried by Alphonso d'Este I.,
Duke of Ferrara, at the enthroning of Leo X. on
the nth of April 1513. The Duke brought it back
with him to Ferrara, where it remained as one of
the great treasures of the palace. In 1598 the
picture went with the Estes to Modena. On the
extinction of the house it fell to the possession of a
family who had occupied an hereditary position in
the court, who preserved the tradition that it was
''painted by Raphael Sanzio and his scholars Giulio
Romano and Gian Francesco Penni." Here, per-
haps, the expert will smile, and remark that he has
heard these names before in connection with original
Raphaels. In 1887 Signur Jacob Badrutt acquired
the picture, in a sadly neglected condition, from the
aged lady who then represented the family.

It is painted on damask linen, which, it is said,
was usually employed for pictures intended to be
carried as processional banners. The great picture
at Dresden is on the usual coarse linen.

Signur Badrutt took his treasure to Dresden, on
the understanding, as he conceived, that there should
be both an expert and a public comparison of the
two pictures, and he felt naturally aggrieved when,
through misapprehension or otherwise, this was cut

down to a private comparison of one hour.

A Great Pictures

It may be permitted even to a layman in such
matters to remark that the view that it is a replica
rather than a copy seems supported by the fact that
the slight, but unmistakable differences between it
and its famous compeer are such aS a copyist would
hardly dare to make in dealing with so supreme
a masterpiece. In the Madonna's gaze is some-
thing less of wonder and amazement, something
more of far reaching into futurity, the assurance
of final triumph and disdain of intermediate ob-
stacle : not yet had the sword which should pierce
through her soul set its sign upon the young mother's
face.

In the child the difference between the two pictures
is rather in an opposite sense. In both there is the
same wonderful suggestion of the awakening of the
divine spirit amid the strange limitations of humanity,
but here it is rather the humanity than the divine
power that arrests attention. The divinity and the
power are there, but one sees them through a veil
of human pathos. There is less imperial moulding
of brow and mouth, less profound mastery in the
eyes: the eyes to which all things were open, but
which saw them now as man seeth, appear con-
templating with a perplexed wonder, that yet falters
not nor shrinks, the path which was to be trodden —
he had known it all along, but it looked so different
now.

Something such as this the picture seems to me

to say. Another shall come, and to him it will say

The Upper Engadine

something else, perhaps something more, according
to the measure of the gift that is in him : and, of
thousands that may see it, to no two will its message
be quite the same, nor, to any among them, will it
mean all that it meant to Raphael.

CHAPTER VII

ST MORITZBAD

In the flat land at the head of the lake, a little less
than a mile from the village, are the famous Chaly-
beate springs, round which has grown up, mainly
within the last half-century, the cluster of buildings
known as St Moritzbad, mostly hotels with the
appurtenances thereof An electric tram runs be-
tween it and the village, so that those using the
waters can put up at either place as they like.

About half-way down, on the larch-clad slope
that rises to the right of the road, is the Museum
Engiadinais, the charming building in which Signur
Nicol Hartmann has housed Signur Campell's
magnificent collection of Rhaetian antiquities. It
would be impossible to have a building more fitted
for its contents, or more aptly supplementing them
in instruction and interest. The object has necessi-
tated its being in the styles of several different
periods, but this only increases its resemblance to
an ancient house which each century as it passed

has touched after its manner. The genius of the

81 L

The Upper Engadine

architect has taken the place of time in unifying
and harmonising all.

To speak of this museum as a collection of
antiquities, gives a very inadequate idea of its
interior. Whole rooms and halls and corridors have
been installed there, and, combined with the old
style of the building, complete and thought-out down
to the smallest detail, make wandering about it like
an excursion into the past. If the visitor should
have the good fortune thus to wander under the
guidance of Signur Campell, it will be strange if
the least antiquarian-minded be not infected with
his enthusiasm and do not imbibe some of his
extensive and curious knowledge.

I suppose a colourable case for sentimental
indignation might be made out from these things
being there, and this is a feeling which Signur
Campell shares to the full. It is not without a
pang that the keenest collector can tear down such
work from the place for which it was made,
where it has stood from the making and gathered
associations. But frequently it is only this apparent
vandalism that saves it from destruction. Often,
too, it is simply a question of when and by whom
it shall be removed. He who hesitates at laying
violent hands on it knows that, if he refrain, it
will not be long before someone less scrupulous
or more wealthy comes by, and nowadays this
may mean that irreplaceable records of a country's
past become unconsidered items in the possessions

Museum Engiadinais

of a foreign millionaire. When one sees how
ruthlessly and rapidly memorials of the past are
being cleared away in the Upper Engadine, one
cannot be too thankful that, while yet there was
time, Signur Campell has charged himself with the
pious duty of collecting and preserving these.

Perhaps the most striking of these transplanted
rooms, is a hall from the palace of the Visconte
Venosta at Grosio, built when that district was ruled
by the Rhaetian leagues, an admirable example of
elaborate woodwork in wall and ceiling. In this room,
it is said, was planned the massacre of the Protestants
in the Valtelline, which took place on the 19th of
July 1620, a Sunday which rivalled the Eve of St
Bartholomew in cold-blooded and ferocious butchery.
As though to give a compensatory association, the
room was inhabited in 1636 by the Due de Rohan,
the brilliant and chivalrous Huguenot, who, exiled
from France, led the French flag to victory and
liberated the Rhaetian Leagueland.

Very interesting, too, are a hall from a house at

Sidon, belonging to the bishops of Chur; a room

dated 1580, with fine stoves; and one from Misocco

dated 162 1. Even more appealing than these stately

chambers, is the typical peasant's room, with its

panelled walls, staired and balustraded stove, and

many cupboards, of which modern development has

left hardly an example in St Moritz, though happily

they are still common in the less progressive parts of

the Engadine.

The Upper Engadine

It would be impossible to notice the many
treasures that these rooms and galleries contain : the
beautiful old furniture, arms and domestic utensils.
I can only urge the visitor to St Moritz not to omit
a visit to the Museum Engiadinais.

A little further on is the English church, a
massive little building in the fine grey-green gabbro
of the neighbourhood, which from all points of the
lake forms an effective feature in the landscape. The
four sides of the tower end in gables that imbed the
spire, which one cannot help regretting is in slate,
and not, like the roof of the main building, in the
schist of the neighbourhood. This tower seems to
have been suggested by that of the half-ruined
church of San Gian, near Celerina, and such assimi-
lation of the local style cannot be too highly com-
mended. An English church on the Continent, like
the Englishman himself, his clubs, habits and amuse-
ments, is apt to have a certain air of extra-territori-
ality. Who has not felt something of a shock on
revisiting some lovely mountain haunt, to find that,
since he was last there, an English church, looking
as though it had just stepped from a suburb of
London, has added a new note of incongruity to
those which hotels, casinos and bazaars had accumu-
lated in the devoted spot. It is pleasant to find the
English church at St Moritz exhibiting a local
appropriateness not too common in the buildings of
the neighbourhood.

The interior is not very happy in its colouring,

St Moritz Churches

but fortunately this is only in its least permanent
features. The stonework is good, and wash and
plaster are not everlasting, so that one may hope
that, when they have to be renovated, the pink walls
with their chocolate dado, and the thin black and
white tracery which outlines the doors and windows,
may be replaced by something with more harmony
and repose. There is a good barrel roof in the
cembra pine characteristic of the neighbourhood, in
which the temptation to stain and varnish has been
happily resisted, a self-control that will be amply
justified by time. It could be wished that the same
restraint had been exercised with the doors and seats.
If it be permissible to mention such a place in con-
nection with things ecclesiastical, I would say that
the new bar of the Kulm Hotel — was ever licensed
victualling so artistically ensconced — offers an edify-
ing example of woodwork biding its time.

Looking over St Moritzbad, one sees on the
opposite side of the valley the French and German
Protestant church, which fraternal charity restrains
me from describing. Below, not far from the lake-
shore, is the new Roman Catholic church, a success-
ful Romanesque structure, with a lofty detached bell-
tower of which the reflection — a long shaft of light
sent down into the lake — is an effective detail in the
landscape. Charity again lays her gentle hand upon
my pen as I recall the interior of this building whose
outward aspect is so pleasing.

We now arrive at St Moritzbad, which owes its

The Upper Engadine

existence to the chalybeate springs. The virtues of
these famous waters have been known from very
early times. It is hardly likely that those inveterate
bathers and spring-finders, the Romans, did not
know of and use them. At any rate, they must have
been used long before any record of them now exist-
ing, for when in 1853 the old spring was retubed,
ancient larchwood pipes were found deep beneath the
surface. In 1575, Paracelsus, in his Tractatus de
Morbis Tartareis, spoke of the waters as those which
he preferred "above all other chalybeates known to
him." Dr Antonio Cesati described the spring in
1674, and states that it then attracted visitors from
all parts of Europe, who, it appears, taxed their con-
stitutions by taking from fifteen to twenty glasses of
the gas-charged water a day. The repute of the
baths in the Middle Ages is said to have contributed
to the popularity of the pilgrimage to the neighbour-
ing shrine of St Moritz, and it is pleasant to hear
this, for such pilgrims as I have met have not been
conspicuous examples of the cleanliness which is
proverbially allied to higher virtues.

In addition to this old spring there are now two
others. It had long been known, from bubbles on
the surface of the Inn, that a similar spring existed
in the bed of the river, but the conservative element
in the commune defeated all attempts to utilise it.
In fact, there was an old and deep-rooted prejudice,
from which the community is now entirely free,

against turning these gifts of nature to commercial

The Springs

account. The gnome of the well, it was said, would
not brook the life-giving stream being retailed for
money, and would withhold his bounty from such
sordid folk. The progressive party had to take
advantage of the obstructives being absent at the
cattle fair of Tirano, to hurry together a quorum,
press through the necessary authorisation, and, the
same day, commence the work. When the bucolic
conservatives returned, they were confronted with a
fait accompli. ** There are some people," the progres-
sive leader Flugi remarked, **to whom one can only
do good in their own despite." This spring was
called after Paracelsus, in gratitude for his early
testimonial to the waters.

In 1886 yet a third spring was tapped, under the
direction of Professor Heim, a distinguished geologist,
and called the Surpunt, the name of the place where
it issues. In endeavouring to capture this spring, of
which the outflow had long been known as the Maria
Huota, President Gartmann, of St Moritz, made
extensive excavations, but was always baffled by
coming to a thick bed of clay, which he took to be
a "farewell rock." Professor Heim, hearing of the
position, telegraphed to him, "Pierce the clay."
The bore was accordingly driven down and, on its
withdrawal, the copious stream, which still flows,
burst forth.

The bubbles of carbonic acid gas which rise to
the surface of the lake where the Inn enters it are
thought to indicate another spring below. In fact,

The Upper Engadine

the whole of the huge mass of diorite, syenite, and
granite which rise on the right into Piz Rosatsch and
Piz del Ova Cotschna, or ** Peak of the red stream/'
are probably one vast laboratory in which all the
water which falls on them from heaven is charged
with healing virtues. Those rugged, barren slopes
are worth more to St Moritz than fat cornlands or
fertile vineyards. As Peter Biisin, who was pastor
of Silvaplana, 1654-85, aptly puts it in some lines
inscribed on a black marble tablet, dated 1674, on
the wall of the old pump-room :

Aspera quas quaeres lymphas dant saxa salubres,

Grata sub ingratis rupibus unda fluit.
Nunc alii Cereris jactent et munera Bacchi :

Omnis opes TeUus ducit ubique suas.

No doubt the cure of the many and various com-
plaints with which persons come to, and without
which they quit, St Moritz, is largely due to the
co-operation of the air with the water. More than
any air I know, it makes one realise, in the most
literal sense, "how good is man's life, the mere
living," though Browning when he wrote the words
was thinking of a far more strenuous life than is
desirable for invalids at St Moritz. I suppose a
busy idleness in the open air is the approved way
for most patients to spend the intervals between
drinking the waters, or bathing in them, and there
are few places where it can be more successfully
prosecuted Those strong enough for sports find

Surroundings

various facilities for them. Besides the fine golf
links within easy reach at Samaden, there are links
both at the villag^e and the baths. Tennis courts
and croquet grounds abound ; even cricket, of a sort,
is sometimes organised under singular and attractive
difficulties. Apart from stricter sport, the crowd of
holiday-makers with nothing particular to do give
abundant opportunities for that fooling so dear to
the Briton, which the staid continental mind finds
it difficult to understand in those of mature age.

Those again who wish simply to lounge and
saunter find innumerable openings for rambles, which
can be extended almost indefinitely as strength and
energy permit. Whatever may be thought of the
general aspect of Engadine scenery as compared with
the more panoramic parts of Switzerland, there is no
place in which the walker is so surrounded at every
step with enchanting detail and ever-changing interest.
In place of the usual formal and unvarying pine of
most Swiss forests, we have here the picturesque,
wayward larch, and the gaunt, twisted stems and
sombre foliage of the aroUa, two inseparable com-
panions throughout the valley, both of them singu-
larly venerable and imposing in their older growth.

The forests are seldom unbroken, but open out
into clearings of rock-strewn pasture, where the
mystic anemone sulphurea sways gently in the breeze,
tufts of gorgeous gentiana acaulis and various smaller
gentians are imbedded in verdure round the tree-
roots, and the delicate little soldanella fringes the

89 M

The Upper Engadine

patches of snow that linger in sunless spots.
Numberless flowers which elsewhere we look for in
spring are found round St Moritz long after mid-
summer, while a very short walk takes us up to crags
set with the deep-green foliage and rosy blossom of
the rhododendron or festooned with two gorgeous
species of Alpine rose, the cinnamona and pomifera.
A singularly pleasing feature of any little garden-
patch or terrace are the Iceland poppies, white,
yellow, and orange, which grow like weeds wherever
they have once been started. These are but a few
of the things which will delight the lover of flowers,
while every serious botanist finds the whole valley a
veritable El Dorado. The streams, as is usual in a
district of crystalline rock, have the pellucid, spark-
ling look which the water of a sedimentary district
never quite attains. All these enchanting details of
form and colour shine in the rare and glittering air
with a sharpness of outline, a vividness of hue, an
intensity of light and shade, which sometimes seem
hardly real, and make the eye contribute to the
general exhilaration.

This, no doubt, is mainly due to the altitude,
which introduces a number of factors that co-operate
beneficently with the waters on both body and mind.
I should hesitate to be responsible theologically for
the statement by which, it is said, encouragement is
sometimes given to invalids at St Moritz, that, in
the worst event, they are nearer heaven than in any
other health resort in Europe, but there is no doubt

Climate

that, short of that unnegotiable contingency, there
are advantages at 6000 feet above the sea not to be
found at lower levels.

The characteristics whose presence or whose
absence give the air its exhilarating and fortifying
quality have been much discussed and much disputed.
Apart from its constituents, its dryness and tenuity,
and the relatively small number of micro-organisms
that it supports, it is said that the actinic effect of the
powerful sunlight co-operates in the general thera-
peutics, and that the considerable electrical tension
of the atmosphere plays a beneficent part by its
action on the nervous system.

On the other hand, the Engadine is unfortunate

in not enjoying the freedom from dust which is a

charm of most high mountain resorts. The dessicat-

ing climate, the high winds, the incessant traffic on

the roads, along which the necessaries for thousands

of visitors have to be brought, produce an unusual

quantity of this subtle distributor of many of the ills

that flesh is heir to. The authorities spare neither

pains nor expense in coping with the nuisance ; all

along the high-road from Samaden to Maloja,

hydrants, hose, and water-carts wage unremitting

war upon it with an energy that is occasionally

disconcerting. The cyclist as he passes from dust to

mud, or fails to use his brake in time to avoid gliding

into a local shower, will reflect sadly on the inherent

contrariety of sublunary affairs.

Those who desire a full examination, not only of

The Upper Engadine

the climate and waters of St Moritz, but of all the
characteristics of the Upper Engadine, will find them
exhaustively dealt with by Dr Veraguth, in The Baths
of St Moritz, a work of which the charm is proof
against the most elaborate statistics. At the outset
the writer engages our confidence by citing the
golden words of Littr6 : " Plus vieilltt U savant y plus
ildait se courber en point dinterro^atiotiy' and through-
out his pages, teeming with professional experience,
and extensive and various knowledge, he never
relaxes that salutary curb.

Numbers of other books in every language offer the
sojourner in St Moritz all the expert and general in-
formation he can desire ; among them I may mention
the quaint and charming booklet of Pastor Hoff-
mann. The pastor, indicated as C, takes a new-
comer, F, sundry walks round the neighbourhood,
in the course of which various objects of interest
are dealt with in a series of conversations which
recall the immortal talk between Piscator and
Viator.

This reminds me that, among ways in which
those staying in the Upper Engadine may occupy
themselves, I should not forget to mention the
occupation which is of all others the most unfailing
to those who love it: the angler should bring his
rod. Trout abound in the lakes and streams of this
valley of waters, even to its farthest and highest
recesses: they are found in the tarns on the in-
clement Julier and Bernina Passes, where in winter

Fishing

the snow is piled several yards high on the thick ice
which commences to form in autumn and lasts
far into spring, and in the Lej Sgrischus, 8800 feet
above the sea, which is frozen for nine months of the
year. This is the discreetly-coloured and wily beck
trout, salmofario^ the black blotches on whose blue-
grey body are larger and more defined than in the
English fish. The salmo lacustrisy which sometimes
runs to over 20 lbs., seeks security for its larger bulk
and gayer colouring in the deeper waters of the
lakes.

Fishing is an ancient industry in the Upper
Engadine, to which in the Middle Ages, and in a
district so far from the sea, ecclesiastical discipline
gave considerable importance. The archives of the
See of Chur abound with references to it The most
important of the tributes in kind due from the Upper
Engadine were fish, 500 of which had to be supplied
every Friday from mid-May to Michaelmas to the
episcopal kitchen, in that part of the diocese where
the bishop might happen to be. In addition to this,
the fishermen of Sils and Silvaplana were bound to
furnish during the summer 4500 trout, measuring a
span from head to tail.

Though in 1288 the bishop, in payment of a debt,

granted in perpetual fief to Andreas Planta fishing

rights in the lakes of St Moritz and Statz with the

Lasala and Lagiazol (the names given to the

outflow of the Inn froni Campfer and Sils lakes

respectively), this would seem to have been subject

The Upper Engadine

to the provision for jours maigres, for in" the review
of rights and perquisites made between Andreas
Planta and the episcopal Vicar-General on the
20th of December 1 3 1 3, there is the special reserva-
tion : " Albeit we must receive fish from the Engadine,
and our share of the chase of the chamois." The
fishing rights dealt with appear to have been re-
stricted to netting : fishing with the line was free to
all, so that piscators and viators of the day enjoyed
their sport unmolested by episcopal grantees.

It would be impossible here to enumerate the
many rambles, short and long, that can be made
round St Moritz, and the invaluable Baedeker, as
well as a variety of local guide-books, make such a
task superfluous. At various points on the left the
visitor's attention is attracted by sign-posts indicating
ways which lead up through larch woods to Chasselas
and Upper Alpina. As one ascends them, the shin-
ing summits of the Bernina mountains peer over the
sombre barrier of the Rosatsch and Surlej till at
length a fine view of the whole magnificent group is
disclosed which becomes more imposing if we pro-
ceed north beyond Upper Alpina to Alp Nova, or,
farther still, to the rocky hummock of Sass Ronzol
and Sass da Muottas.

From almost every point of the path rambles may

be made over the breezy pastures which stretch

between the Saluver and Suvretta valleys; or we

may wander up by the lonely tarns and rocky peaks

and ridges where the Schlatteinbach and its affluents

> ;

» •
« •

Rambles

have their sources, and enjoy the satisfying solitude,
the large, companionable loneliness, of the hills. This
is one of the charms of the Upper Engadine: its
peopled haunts offer all that can be asked in the way
of gaiety and amusement, and if a man tire of these,
and wish for a while to escape the madding crowd, a
couple of hours will take him to what seems

a land where no man comes,
Nor hath come since the making of the world.

A favourite walk is through the Choma forest to
Pontresina, proceeding from the village by the bridge
over the Inn, just above the fine waterfall at the head
of the Charnadura gorge, or from the Baths by the
shady, well-benched path along the right shore of
the lake. Either way takes us to the Ada Silva, the
"Forest Dairy," much frequented for afternoon tea,
and to the Statzer-See, a charming, deep-hued tarn,
the deep hues changing with the weather from bottle-
green, through violet and purple, to well-nigh black,
all of them shot with bronze from the reflection of
the surrounding pines. The striking view hence of
the Julier and Albana peaks is given in one of the
sketches. Pontresina is reached by the picturesque
Punt Ota, over the deep-worn chasm of the Bernina
beck, or, without going there, one can find an endless
variety of rambles through the scattered forest of
aroUa and larch.

On the same side of the river, but in the opposite

direction, is a delightful walk to the Hahnensee, a

The Upper Engadine

mystic little lake, set high above the valley amid
weather-worn rocks and weather-beaten pines, with
a far from mystic restaurant beside it. The restaurant
is convenient, but it would be difficult to design, if
one tried, anything more out of harmony with the
lovely surroundings by which it makes its living than
its whitewashed walls and tin roof. And why should
this be? If the good folk who keep it had been
building for themselves or for their cattle, that which
they built would have been as much, and as charm-
ing, a feature of the landscape as the grey rocks and
hoary pines among which it stood, but, building for
the stranger, they seem beset by a fatal attraction
towards dismal commonplace or grotesque pretension.
•*Only a matter of appearance," said a practical
companion, when I was doubting whether my
principles would permit me to have tea there. He
said it with a superior air of appealing to higher
considerations, much as Solomon, in extolling the
God-fearing woman, reminds us that favour is deceit-
ful and beauty is vain. But, after all, what is scenery
but a matter of appearance. In fact, Switzerland
lives on appearances, and it is but sound business
to take them into account in housing the thousands
who are attracted thither, not by the sterling virtues
of the population, but by the superficial loveliness
of the land.

A return from the Hahnensee can be made by
Campfer, diverging if one like to Crestalta, the fine

view from which is given in a sketch. Below lie the

Rambles

lakes of Campfer and Silvaplana. Part of the village
of Campfer is seen on the right; farther on, Silva-
plana, seated on the green promontory by which the
exertions of the stream from the Julier, seconded on
the other side by that from the Surlej, have cut the
original lake in two; a picturesque wooden bridge
spans the narrow channel still left to the Inn between
the deltas of its furious tributaries ; in the distance
the valley is closed by the massive Piz Margna, a
glacier, filling the cleft in its broad head. At Crestalta
also is the inevitable restaurant.

I have sometimes heard captious visitors complain
that the Upper Engadine is as littered with benches
and restaurants as an overgrown tea-garden. Yet
no one can deny the convenience of this bountiful
provision for weary and thirsty souls. A country
where thousands congregate must be somewhat
sophisticated. The wayward rambler sometimes
resents the solicitude of sign-posts, and feels that the
freedom of the woods is incomplete without some
possibility of being lost in them, but it were juster to
regard the indefatigable and ubiquitous Kurverein
as the good genius of the mountains, not only putting
the walker in the way that he would go, but suggest-
ing ways that he would not otherwise have thought of.
On the walk to the Hahnensee, for instance, his
attention will have been drawn to the paths which
mount to the Piz Rosatsch and Piz Ovacotschna,
and, when there, to the charming continuation of the

walk to the Fuorcla Surlej. Here, too, is a welcome

97 N

The Upper Engadine

little restaurant, and one at which the nisrht can be
spent, so as to have the coolness and clearness of early
morning for walking over the fine ice-field of the
Corvatsch glacier, and getting the splendid view from
the peak.

This is one of the easiest opportunities in the
neighbourhood of St Moritz, of making acquaintance
with the region of ice and snow which lies so near us
in the Upper Engadine. It is beyond the province
assigned to this book, and has been dealt with by
a master-hand in a preceding volume, but I may
venture here to urge all who can to take advantage of
being 6000 feet above the sea to, at least once,
ascend a little further, into that radiant world, high
and lifted up in majestic and awful purity, as free
from soil and smirch of lower earth as though it had
just descended out of heaven from God.

CHAPTER VIII

WINTER

There are three sketches of the neighbourhood of
St Moritz in winter, when it is worth a long journey
to see. At no time is it more lovely and enjoyable
and more unlike our usual surroundings at home,
Olive groves and the blue Mediterranean are hardly
a greater change from London in winter than are
the cloudless sky and shining landscape of the high
Alps, where nearly every year some new resort is
opened to the Christmas holiday-maker. Among
such resorts the Upper Engadine takes a foremost
place. Every winter a large crowd gathers there
and devotes itself in the most strenuous manner to
robust enjoyment. This crowded leisure focusses at
St Moritz. It would be difficult to find a gayer
scene than its frozen lake and snow-clad slopes
present through the long, hard winter. Even the
work that goes on partakes of the general exhilara-
tion. Sleighs and toboggans replace carts and
barrows, lightening the labour of man and beast, and

adding a novel excitement to transport and locomo-

••• • . • -

The Upper Engadine

tion. Bound and buried though nature be, the
work of those who deal with her is by no means at a
standstill ; the universal snow, instead of staying it,
is as a railway system over the country, transforming
long, laborious mountain roads into smooth and facile
descents ; little more than guidance and gravitation
are needed to bring the hay mown in summer and
the timber felled in autumn from the distant upper
regions to the villages where they should be. Noth-
ing is more enjoyable than to take a passage down
on a sleigh laden with hay or faggots : to pass swiftly
through the keen air over glittering slopes, or along
winding forest roads, or in the trough of the steep
gullies which centuries of similar traffic have cut
through copse and wood; most admirable is the
adroitness with which a practised mountaineer pilots
his wayward and unwieldy craft.

This, however, is but casual trifling to the serious
winter sportsman. The regular sports are organised
in the most business-like manner, and are as cosmo-
politan as the population. Northern and mountain
lands in all quarters of the globe have contributed to
them. Ski-ing has been quite domesticated in
Switzerland ; to say the same of bandy and curling
might expose me to animadversions from my more
northern compatriots, but at any rate they are
sufiiciently established at St Moritz to afford much
innocent amusement to those who are not Scotch,
and a fascinating field for comment to those who are.

Skating and hockey offer their rival claims and main-
^ 100

«•«.«

c - ^ *• '

Winter

tain their natural antagonism. In addition to the
course and the rink on the lake, which are open to all,
most of the hotels have rinks of their own, and take
great pains to keep the surface in good condition.
The indigenous tobogganing still holds its own, both
in the pristine simplicity in which scarce any are too
young or too old to indulge in it, and in the highly
elaborated developments which demand the expert
skill, and involve the spice of danger, considered
necessary in a fully-accredited sport.

The Ubermensch, when he arrives, will hardly
differ more from the troglodyte, than does the bob-
sleigh from the primitive ** luge." There is a special
track for the descent of the former formidable craft
and special arrangements for towing it up again, but
perhaps its most attractive employment is when it
takes to the common highway, as in a run down from
Maloja to Casaccia.

Amusement indoors is as highly organised as
sport without. Balls and dances, concerts and
theatricals, games with every absorbing embarrass-
ment of complexity and every engaging shade of
foolishness, fill up the long evenings.

The mundane side of the calendar is observed
with the catholicity that might be expected from the
mixed multitude of pleasure-seekers. Christmas is
honoured with all the elaboration with which Teu-
tonic tradition and British gastronomy have invested
it ; no theological test winnows the gay crowd that

gathers in masks and costumes for the carnival ball

101

The Upper Engadine

on the illuminated ice of the lake, while the survival
of an older cult is suggested by the closing juvenile
festival of the Kalends of March, when the children of
the neighbourhood, with jangling cow-bells suspended
from their necks, troop round the villages proclaiming
the advent of spring in the traditional ditty :

Chalanda Marz I Chaland'Avrigl 1
Laschd las vachas our d'ovigl 1
Las vachas vaun culs vdels.
Las nuorsas culs agnels,
Las Chevras culs uzdls,
£ las giallinas faun ils d\rs.
La naiv smarts chescha
£ I'erva crescha.
Scha 'ns dais qualchosa
Schi Dieu 's benedescha,
£ scha nun dais iinguotta
Schi '1 luf as sbluotta 1

Kalends of March I Kalends of April I

Let the cows out from the stall 1

The cows go forth with their calves.

The sheep with their lambs,

The goats with their kids.

And the hens lay their eggs.

The snow melts

And the grass grows.

God bless you, if you give us something.

And, if you give us nothing.

May the wolf take you 1

from which it will be seen that the proceedings include

the inevitable collection, with its connected blessing

and ban, a touch of nature in which all cults

are kin.

Added to all this strenuous enjoyment is the

102

Winter

exceeding beauty of the broad, restful landscape
bathed in light, and the enchanting details to be noted
in wandering over it ; the exquisite pencilling on the
snow of the shadows of trees and bushes, grading
through every neutral hue from delicate grey to
deepest violet ; the infinite variety of decoration given
by the snow — laid in broad patches on the sombre
foliage of the aroUa, or bowing to an added grace the
pliant larch limbs on which remnants of autumn
foliage still linger in brushes of tawny gold, fashioned
by wind and rain into shapes of unimaginable drollery
on stumps and fences, melting into fringes and veils
of iridescent icicles on cliffs and eaves.

One charming feature will be missed by those
accustomed to the winter landscape in other parts of
the Alps. At no time does the chalet with its deep
eaves, many balconies, and black-red timber show to
more advantage than when in winter it is set as
a patch of warmth and vitality, a touch of opulent
colour, in the universal mantle of snow. But chalets
only appear in the Engadine as sophisticated and
embarrassed exotics. That part of the typical
Engadine house which is delightful in colour, the
roof of stone flags, is in winter piled several feet deep
with snow, and the mason-work, quaint and pictur-
esque though it often is, looks sickly and uncomfortable
amid the general whiteness.

The Alps in winter are deeply indebted to Norway
for the gift of the ski. Its introduction is compara-
tively recent, but the alacrity with which it has been

103

The Upper Engadine

taken up by the population shows how thoroughly
it meets a want. Detachments of the Swiss
army are exercised on skis every winter, and the
citizen soldiers have taken the accomplishment back
to their mountain homes, where it has been eagerly
adopted by old and young. Little children may be
seen going to the often distant school, or trooping
over slopes and plateaux, on miniature, home-made
skis, often of the most primitive construction. Even
those who do not aspire to it as a sport, who can
only contemplate forty-miles-an-hour runs and forty-
yard leaps with respectful admiration, welcome it as
a means of locomotion, enabling them to go to
places otherwise inaccessible, to pass swiftly and
lightly over snow in which unskied bipeds would
flounder up to the knees, if not over the head.

Let not the humble novice mind that his course
may seem but as shambling and shuffling to the
winner of cups and breaker of records. What is that
to him as he brushes over the sparkling slopes and
unlocks the secrets of the hills ? He will find himself
on "great spaces washed with sun," stretching to
distant peaks and ramparts, so ethereal in their
delicate loveliness, so suffused with hazy light, that
they almost seem a vision that will vanish while he
beholds. He will pass into solemn depths of forest
where the winding way is edged and arched with
pines, whose ruddy trunks stretch on either hand
into illimitable aisles. ^ Or, perchance, his path shall

lead him up to some radiant sanctuary where nature

104

Winter

seems taking her winter rest in undisturbed repose :
no breath of wind breaks the stillness, nor note of
bird, nor human footfall : the earth as he ascends
puts on a new magnificence, and the grace of the
fashion of it changes, the heaven deepens to a
diviner blue, and the shadows to a richer purple, the
peaks close round and rise cathedral-like on every
side — a cathedral vast and soaring, vaulted with
unfathomable sky, piled and pinnacled, sculptured
and wrought, beyond any architect's imagining, and
clothed with light as with a garment.

105

CHAPTER IX

CAMPFER

Campfer is the next village in the valley. Besides

numerous footpaths, direct and indirect, two hisfh-

roads connect it with St Moritz — an upper from the

village, affording pleasant views, and a lower from

the Baths, following up the Inn, which it crosses

about midway. This part of the river's course is the

ancient Lassala, the fishing rights in which had, as

already mentioned, a marketable value six centuries

ago. The name still survives in the Sela gorge,

cut by the Inn through the transverse barrier

of schist which extends across the valley just below

Campfer. The angler, noting the clear pools and

babbling rapids and quiet reaches with which

it meanders through the green meadows, among

masses of grey rock and hoary larch or under

willows leaning from islets of sand and shingle,

will readily understand its ancient importance to

the Friday table of the bishops of Chur.

This transverse bar of schist forms the last of

the rocky steps which separate the valley into three

106

Valley Lakes

reaches, forming as many lake-basins, though, as
already mentioned, the lower lake has now dis-
appeared ; the second is but a remnant of its former
self, while the third has been divided into three by
detritus brought down by the Fex at Sils, and
the Surlej and Julier at Silvaplana.

The question of the origin of such lakes is
presented in the Upper Engadine in a manner that
forces itself on the attention. What is the explana-
tion of these deep basins, where we should expect
a continuous trough of comparatively uniform incline,
worn by the river? There have been those who
were ready, here as elsewhere, with the universal
specific of a glacial age, but Swiss geologists, with
working examples of glaciers before their eyes, have
always looked askance at too extensive an application
of the glacial solution. Moreover, their wisdom not
being of the type which suffers less well-informed
minds with the gladness of the early Corinthians,
they have been prone to remark to humble camp-
followers of science that Englishmen had glaciers
on the brain. Said a learned man to me in this
connection : "It is one thing for a glacier to twiddle
round a great stone and make a 'giant's cauldron,'
and quite another to remove the millions of tons
of rock necessary to form a basin, such as that of
the lake of Geneva, fifty miles long and reaching
to over seven hundred feet in depth. So far as I
have observed it, ice planes and grinds, but it does

not scoop." We, the camp-followers, can but glean

107

The Upper Engadine

what appear to be the general conclusions of our
betters, which in the present case seem to be that
in the slow tectonic movements of the earth's crust,
bars have been raised across the course of the
river, which has thus been dammed up in a lake,
and, as it were, drowned its former bed. Of course
a crustal subsidence might have had the same result,
or the two processes may have been combined.

The name Campfer {Campus ferrt) commemo-
rates the fact, of which there are other and ancient
records, that in the whole of the district round the
Julier and Septimer, iron ore was extensively worked.
The name Pian Canfer, given to the boggy slopes
on the right of the Val Cavreccia, which descends
from the Septimer pass, preserves a similar record.
Not only here, but throughout the Upper Engadine,
mining and smelting were formerly considerable
industries. Here, again, the episcopal archives
of Chur teem with records of past economical con-
ditions. The non-existence of the industry at the
present day is one of the many evidences of the
extent to which every district had to be self-sufficient
before improved means of communication and loco-
motion rendered it easier and cheaper to import from
outside than to utilise the local resources. Very
noticeable are the indications of former cultivation of
grain in the Upper Engadine, even as high as the
Val Fex.

Beyond Campfer the road skirts the lake to

Silvaplana. About half-way is the pleasant wooded

108

Silvaplana

promontory of U Piz, with its reduplicated hill, prob-
ably once an island which has been connected with
the shore by deposits of the stream from the Piz
d'Albana. It juts so far across the lake that it
nearly cuts it in two, leaving, in fact, a channel no
wider, though deeper, than that between the lakes of
Campfer and Silvaplana, in which the water is sup-
posed to momentarily resume the character of the
river Inn.

The silvan shades in which, as its name records,
Silvaplana was once embosomed, have long since
given way to the green and flowery meadows which
now cover the broad delta that the turbulent Julier
stream has thrust across the lake. As I have
already mentioned, a quotation from Horace, in-
scribed in large letters on the post-office stables,
expresses appreciation of the neighbourhood which,
it may be feared, Horace himself would have been
far from feeling. The late Gothic church is a pictur-
esque little structure, at least it was so when I last
saw it ; but it was then about to be restored, and I
tremble to think of the appearance it may now
present.

At Silvaplana are the works which supply

electricity to the valley. A wooden aqueduct leaves

the vehement Julier stream just about the tree limit,

before it descends the deep chasm which it has worn

in the Albanatscha, behind the village. The captured

water is led along the hillside in a larch-wood trough,

to be flung back into the stream in a fine fall after

109

The Upper Engadine

what is required for the electrical works in the village
has been taken off in pipes. Side by side with the
electrical works is a water-wheel, the earliest and the
latest harnessing of water-power, a striking illustra-
tion of the recent return of industry to its oldest
helpmate.

An Englishman, accustomed to the limited use of
electricity at home, is continually struck in Switzer-
land with the extent to which it has linked itself with
the life of the people. Remote and primitive mountain
villages have their public telephone, the housewife has
her electric iron, even the cows have electric light in
the stables in which they pass the winter. The ex-
tension of its industrial uses of late years is most
remarkable. The playground of Europe is rapidly
becoming a region of strenuous industry. The great
rivers are being fringed with large, elaborately
equipped factories, in which the use of water-power,
pure and simple, and of electricity generated from
it, are combined. It will be a curious instance of
history repeatingitself if manufacturing industry again
seeks streams and rivers, as in the old days before
water-wheels were superseded by steam. Population
may some day be as congested in the mountain lands
of cascades and torrents as now in the great coal
basins. Even political power, which is so largely
based on the power of the purse, may be a gift the
future holds for the beautiful highlands which are
now the neutral holiday resorts of the nations. If

this is to be, one cannot be too thankful that the

110

Silvaplana

"white coal," as the Swiss affectionately call their
water-power, deals so much more gently and
sympathetically with nature than the black. What
a contrast to gasworks or a coal-mine is this clean,
trim little building at Silvaplana, with its aqueduct
of ruddy larch, and the fine cascade fi-om the overflow
of its reservoir adding a striking feature to the
landscape. It is as though the grimy palm of Vulcan
were replaced by the light finger of Apollo.

Ill

CHAPTER X

THE JULIER

The JuHer pass is the raison ditre of Silvaplana,
and the Piz Julier is its glory. There are traces that
the old Roman road to the pass ran high above the
site of the present village; the promontory was
probably then covered with pine forest, broken only
by outbursts of the turbulent stream. The present
road to the pass, by which one also starts to the
peak, leaves the village opposite the Wildemann Inn,
a fine example of a substantial old Engadine house.
At the first turning walkers can take to the path by
the telegraph posts up the Albanatscha, and save
half an hour in the long winding of the highway.

Before the construction of the Albula railway, thfe
Julier road was a frequent route for entry into the
Upper Engadine, which makes a much more favour-
able first impression here than from the Albula.
After emerging from the grey desolation of the two
upper reaches of the valley, a superb view is gradually
disclosed of the peaks and ice-fields of the Bernina

group. More and more as we descend, the panorama

112

The Julier Pass

IS extended to the right, first by the peaks ranged in

front of the Fex glacier, and finally by the massive

Margna. The one thing lacking is the Engadine :

we seem to have arrived in a land of serried and

far-stretched mountains in which there is no place

for the valley of the Inn. So precipitous are its sides

at this point, that no suggestion is given of the

broad lake-filled chasm intervening between the

immediate foreground and the sombre rampart which

rises to the glistening fields and summits of snow.

At length we are among the first outposts of the

forest, gloomy, gaunt aroUa and weather-beaten

larch, their tops bared by many a blast ; suddenly

we see through the foliage the gleam of water and

of verdure in the sunshine; a moment after, the

lovely valley from Sils to St Moritz, with lakes and

forests, meadows and clustered homes, is stretched

below us.

In mounting to the pass, however, all this is

behind us. We traverse a huge desolate trough of

rock and screes rising to the serrated ridges which

hedge round the Julier and Albana peaks on the

right, and Piz Polaschin on the left. Two steps of

moraine, marking the halting-places of a glacier,

which slowly receded and finally disappeared, mount

to successive, and almost level, reaches of the valley.

The road winds through the first reach for about

half an hour among chaotically strewn rocks, which

have rolled down from the Munteratsch, and are the

haunt of innumerable marmots. If the passer-by

113 P

The Upper Engadine

have luck, he may surprise a grroup of the droll
little creatures at play — or it may be work — and
snatch a fearful joy watching their gfambols, till
some sound or movement sends them scuttling into
their holes.

We then reach the broad boggy pastures of the
Julier Alp. On the right is the acla or dairy, two
long, grey buildings, sticking like limpets to huge
rocks which partly form their walls, where the cows
which pasture round are milked and butter and
cheese are made.

Here the path to the Piz Julier leaves the high-
road, which, after traversing the Alp, finally mounts
in zigzags to the pass, a broad saddle of rock, bog,
and pasture, flecked with snow and seamed with
rivulets, the course of the latter embroidered with
marsh-marigolds, looking pleasantly homely amid
the rich nival flora near them. The tarns on the
left are stocked with trout, in spite of being 7500 feet
above the sea.

The highest point of the pass is marked by two

round stone pillars, five feet high, standing on

either side of the road ; they are without inscription,

nor, I believe, is there any extraneous record of their

origin or date: they are naturally ascribed to the

Romans, but, naturally again, this is disputed. It is

pointed out that no schoolboy is more given to

carving his name than were the ancient masters of

the world, that it is most unlike them to have left

such landmarks without inscription, and that the

114

The Julier Pass

pillars may have an origin far anterior to the Roman
occupation.

There is a similar difference of opinion about the
name Julier, which obviously claims relationship with
the great Caesar. The philologist in the Engadine,
with the plastic and inexhaustible resources of Celtic
at command, is seldom content to leave an obvious
Latin derivation unquestioned. It is suggested that
the name of Julius Caesar is about the biggest
umbrella in history: that any place-name having
some phonetic resemblance to it would be insensibly
modified, so as to give it a title to stand sub magni
nominis umbra: that there was a Celtic sun-god
Jul — the conclusion follows naturally.

Whatever be the origin of the name or of the
pillars, there is something strangely impressive in
these rude records that nameless men planted thus
early in these vast solitudes. Their very smallness
and meanness, in the midst of the savage desolation
around, appeals to the imagination. Nature has
sentinelled the pass by a rocky pyramid rising
superb and beautiful towards heaven, as though in
scorn of the puny human landmarks beside it, yet,
as in Pascal's great saying, the uncouth little pillars
are more wonderful than the most imposing resultant
of the unrecking forces of nature. If ages hence some
intelligent existence should visit our planet when it
"rolls with the dust of a vanished race," more cause
for wonder and more food for thought would be
furnished by the most squalid cottage or the

115

The Upper Engadine

unloveliest factory, did such survive, than by the
proudest mountain of the Alps;

As already mentioned, the path to the Piz Julier
leaves the high-road at the commencement of the
Julier Alp. After the pastures, it ascends among the
rocky wreckage by which time wears down the
proudest peaks to the kaminy or chimney, a deep
chasm where snow lingers through the summer,
which is about an hour from the summit.

Sketches are given of the twin peaks of the Julier
and Albana in summer and in winter. By their
proud isolation, their noble proportions, their bold
and soaring outline, they will have attracted the
lover of mountains from his first arrival, with a
compelling charm, which must, sooner or later, lead
him to them. He who is fortunate enough to be on
the summit of the Julier on a clear day, or on one
of those days of atmospheric magic which are even
more impressive than unbroken clearness, will never
forget the time spent there, ** walled by wide air
and roofed by boundless heaven"; on every side,
range rises beyond range, and peaks crowd on the
horizon, as though an almighty fiat had stayed the
billows of a stormy sea, and fixed them in a great
calm.

There is a strange relationship between mountains
and the sea, as in the appeal to liberty that Words-
worth heard in both. Often in mid-ocean mountain
scenes have risen in my mind, as though from some
subtle association, and here, on the summit of the

116

Piz Julier

Julier, the hackneyed expression of "a sea of
mountains" recurs irrepressibly.

The descent may be made along the rocky ridge
of the eastern spur till we reach the zigzags which
descend over screes to the Alp Suvretta, whence we
go down the Suvretta da St Moritz to Campfer, or
a pleasant path over the Albana pastures may be
taken on the right, passing by the Orchas Alp, and
descending to the Julier road just above Silvaplana.

Another delightful walk from Silvaplana, as from
most places in the Upper Engadine, is to the Fuorcla
Surlej. This saddle between the Piz Corvatsch and
Munt Arias, which has been already mentioned, is
equally accessible from Silvaplana, Sils, St Moritz,
or Pontresina. It thus affords a pleasant way
of going from any place in the main valley, to the
side valley of the Bernina. Both it and the Piz
Surlej take their name from a ruined hamlet, one of
the few on the right side of the valley, which is
reached by a wooden bridge from Silvaplana. Surlej
was originally the village of the lake, and existed
long before Silvaplana, but was destroyed by out-
breaks of the Surlej brook in 1793 and 1834 —
turbulent episodes in the formation of its delta — a
few walls still stand and the shell of the church,
roofless and choked with shingle.

The walk thither from Silvaplana affords a good
illustration of the energetic action of mountain streams.
One descends from Silvaplana over the broad cone of
detritus which has been excavated from the Julier

117

The Upper Engadine

valley and from the deep gorge by which the stream
descends from it. This has choked the stream that
formed it, and thrust it to its extreme right, so that
its course is in the reverse direction to that of the
Inn. Here it is busily prosecuting the same work,
extending the delta up the left side of the lake to
meet that which the less boisterous Inn is quietly
and persistently extending from the upper end.

A picturesque wooden bridge of about loo feet,
connects this delta of the Julier with that of the
streams which seam the precipitous descent on the
opposite side. These wooded precipices, down which
the Surlej brook leaps in a fine fall, once encircled a
large bay which has now been completely filled up.

One is sometimes surprised at the work ascribed

to so yielding an element as water in destroying and

renewing the face of the earth — the huge valleys it has

carved out, the stately hills that it has laid low, the

wide plains that it has spread — but surprise vanishes

in watching one of these mountain streams in flood.

When, on the melting of the snow in spring, or after

heavy rains, we find some tiny rivulet, whose clear

waters can ordinarily be stepped across anywhere,

transformed into a raging torrent, turbid with mud and

gravel, and see great stones bounding wildly down its

bed, and when we remember that this is but one

among thousands like it, the wonder is, not that the

mountains are worn away, but that there are any

mountains left. This, too, is only one of the ways in

which the yielding element carries on incessant war

118

Disintegration

against the solid earth. Always and everywhere it is
insinuating itself into the rock, subtly dissolving it
with constituents it has acquired in passing through
the still more yielding air, or splitting and riving it
by expansion into ice.

I have mentioned but a few of the delightful
rambles by which the neighbourhood of Silvaplana
justifies the quotation from Horace on its stables;
one may sally forth from it at random and be sure of
finding oneself in pleasant ways.

119

CHAPTER XI

SILS

The road up the valley from Silvaplana lies straitly
between the left shore of the lake and the moun-
tains which rise precipitously from it. Walkers
will do well after Campfer to take the path which
follows the lakes on the right side of the valley, every
step of which is beautiful. It leads now under shady
trees, now over park-like or rock-strewn slopes;
sometimes it deftly picks its way up and down, in and
out, along precipitous hillsides, amid many-hued
crags, shattered, riven and torn, set with steadfast-
rooted pine and larch, festooned with red roses and
inlaid with rhododendron, dwarf blue clematis, and
countless other lovely flowers; occasionally may be
found masses of the rare and stately Alpine columbine.
On the right are the ever-changing waters of the
lakes, or the flat flowery meadows that separate
them.

Cyclists, of course, keep to the high-road on the
opposite side, and will do well to remember that, as a

strong wind usually sets down the valley during the

120

A Morning Ride

day, the earlier the start the better. Those who
leave St Moritz any time before seven will be well
rewarded not only by the absence of wind, but by
seeing the lakes in their loveliest aspect, when woods
and mountains, blue sky and floating clouds, are
glassed in the still waters,

Leaving that beautiful which was before.
And making that which was not,

SO that even the stuccoed front of the unloveliest hotel
bears its part in the general enchantment by the long
shafts of light that its reflection sends down into the
depths. One has a delightful run back from Maloja
before a stern wind, an ideal opportunity for those
who can raise their gear.

While staying at St Moritz in the summer of 1906,
my wife and I took this ride with the intention of
looking round hotels at Maloja, where we thought of
spending some time. But vainly do those who travel
with an open mind make plans beforehand. In pass*
ing Sils Baselgia, we were struck with a large building
in the quaint and varied Engadine architecture. It
was not till we had dismounted to look at what we
took for a picturesque country house, that we noticed
the superscription of Hotel Margna. Entering into
conversation with the landlord, who was superintend-
ing some work in the garden, he asked us to go over
it, and we had not gone far before we felt that the
object of our expedition was settled. " How about

staying here?" I asked, well knowing that the con-

121 Q

The Upper Engadine

sultation was an empty form. "We can't stay
anywhere else," was the unhesitating answer.
And there we were for the remaining month of our
holiday.

It would be quite out of place in this book to
speak of hotels as such, nor in the Upper Engadine
is there need. Inn-keeping has there been elevated
to a science ; any remarks I make about the edifices
which house it, refer to them as public buildings or
features of the scenery. A3 such, this beautiful
house at Sils Baselgia realised what I had long
waited for in Switzerland — an hotel in the tradi-
tional architecture of the district and in harmony
with the scenery around it. No old Engadine
house which seems to have dreamed away the
centuries on its quiet hillside or in its village street,
realises this ideal more sufficingly than the Hotel
Margna.

Within, it is as full of nooks and surprises, of
unexpected turns and corners and recesses, as an old
country house, which, in fact, it is. Its history is
rather interesting, and is characteristic of the
Upper Engadine. Its builder, Janon Josti, com-
menced life as the goat-boy of the village. One of
his flock having broken her leg, he ran away,
fearing punishment, obtained employment with a
confectioner, learnt the business, started a cake-shop
in Berlin, which developed into the Caf(6 Josti, and
made a fortune. In 181 7 he revisited his native

valley, then in dire distress from famine. It might

122

Hotel Margna

have seemed that the commune had scant claims on
the runaway goat-boy, but not so thought Josti. He
was not going to make cakes for Berliners, and let
his own people lack bread. So, with the view of
giving employment, he set to work to build this
"patrician house" regardless of expense, or, rather,
on the unusual principle of expending as much as
possible.

The result is seen in its massive and elaborate
construction. The picturesque, but apparently need-
less, wall which surrounds it was pointed out to me
as his final device for spending money. His descend-
ants, I fear, were not as industrious as himself, and
ultimately the father of the present proprietor, Signur
Peter Badrutt, bought the house with all that it con-
tained. This accounts for the old carved chests in
the halls, and the family portraits and other paintings
on the walls, some of considerable merit, others very
quaint. One in the entrance hall is an example of
homely anachronism in biblical illustration ; the
patriarch Isaac is shown in a four-post bedstead
receiving pottage from Jacob, whose outstretched
hands are clad in neatly-made mittens of kid-skin, a
tippet of which is round his neck, suggesting that
Rebecca was an expert and expeditious needle-
woman ; on a shelf above, a row of medicine-bottles,
duly corked and labelled, define the situation.
Through the open window, the unsuspecting Esau is
seen with a blunderbuss, aiming at a fat buck from a
somewhat unsportsmanlike distance which should

123

The Upper Engadine

leave no uncertainty as to the genuine venison beingf
shortly forthcoming.

Sigrnur Badrutt has recently entrusted the restor-
ingf, enlargingf, fitting and furnishing of the house to
Sigfnur Nicol Hartmann, of whom I have already
spoken. The result is an object-lesson of antiquarian
feeling and artistic taste. Old features have been
piously preserved, and their spirit carried into the new
work with infinite variety, and down to the smallest
detail. Even things that are generally accepted as un-
avoidably commonplace, such as ventilating openings
and central heating apparatus, are made charming
features. Old construction has been utilised with
the resourceful ingenuity I have already mentioned
in the bridge-room of the Hotel Kulm. Especially
quaint and cosy are two vaulted rooms, originally
kitchen and store-room ; the large open fireplace of
the kitchen has been left, and is filled with blazing
logs on the slightest provocation from the fickle
Engadine climata On its deep projecting hood is
the traditional Engadine greeting : Dieu 'ns AlUgra^
** God give you joy." *

* The ''Saliids Romauntschs " of Conradin de Flugi may be
interesting as a specimen of the language : —

" Dieu 'ns allegra I "
O che bel e consolant saliid 1
Quelch 'ais allegro, ho '1 meglder s-chiid.
Tel saliid — ah poch pti iisitd —
Da nos vegls il cordiel ais st6.

124

Hotel Margna

The new wood- and metal-work suffers nothing
in comparison with the old, which in the Engadine
is the higfhest praise that can be given. The arolla
wood is, as a rule, left its natural tint, though
occasionally colour is effectively used; the beam
and plaster ceiling of the beautiful dining-hall are
an admirable example of good effect produced
with few and simple materials. The bedrooms have
been as carefully and artistically thought-out as the
rest; no two are alike, and each has some quaint
feature, some ingenious adaptation of structural
necessity to practical convenience, which renders it
a fitting framework to the lovely view which every
window commands. My wife's appreciation culmin-
ated in an exclamation which is, I should say, unique
in the record of mountain hotels : " I do hope we

" St^ con Dieu I "
O che dutsch e confortus cumi6 1
Megl nun po tin sgur gnir licenzid.
Hoz in d\ tuot ais complimentus —
Sencha simplicited, tuorna tar nus.

" God give you joy,"
Beautiful and dheering greeting.
Whom He gives joy to has the best of blessings.
This greeting, now too seldom used,
Comes to us from the heart of the good old time.

" Be with God,"
Sweet and comforting &rewell
When friends must part.
Nowadays we overflow in compliments^
Sacred simplicity return to us.

126

The Upper Engadine

shall have some rainy days that I shall be obliged
to spend indoors."

There are two Sils. Near the high-road on the
left of the valley is Sils Baselgia, so called from the
ancient church, or basilica, of the neighbourhood,
and the more modern and now more important Sils
Maria, which also in time built itself a church whose
sentinel-like belfry may be seen from afar, rising
above the village roofs with the peculiar wide-awake
expression that a clock and windows often give a tower.
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast
than between this alert-looking tower and the dreamy
spire of the little mother church, standing lonely
between its hamlet and the tranquil Inn, as though
it had ceased to have anything to do with the affairs
of the world, and was but a "grief-worn memory of
old years."

The interior is quite uninteresting, except for
some curious mortuary slabs on the floor. One
cannot help thinking that the churches must once
have had their share of the pains and taste which
have been so freely lavished on the interior of old
houses throughout the district, but, either from
neglect or from some unfortunate notion of ecclesi-
astical fitness, not a wrack remains.

The hamlet consists of some score of houses in
the picturesque style, and with the lovely lichened
stone roofs of the valley. The large irregular pile of
the hotel, instead of being the jarring note among
its primitive surroundings which mountain hotels

126

• •'

• » r

Chesa-Badnitt

usually are, seems the proper completion of them,
the protecting and seignorial house which it once
was, and the functions of which, in gfiving employ-
ment to its humbler neigfhbours, it still fulfils, though
on a more commercial basis.

Those who would see an excellent specimen of an
old Engadine house, should ask Signura Badrutt to
show them over the private house of the family.
The panellingr in one vaulted room is especially good.
In the other rooms the ceiling also is in panel In
one all the hinges, locks, and other fittings are in
old brass- work, a pleasing variation of the usual iron.
The fittings of the doors are throughout particularly
interesting; perhaps the best specimens are in two
servants' rooms in the roof, too low to stand upright
in, and so rudely walled and ceiled with balks of
timber that one wonders that such good work should
have been lavished on the doors.

An interesting little inmate of this interesting

house is Signura Badrutt's youngest child, who,

when I last saw her, at the age of four, already spoke

Romansch, Italian, German, and French, and so

instinctively sorted the languages in her little brain

as to talk to each of the cosmopolitan employees in

the house in their own tongue. This infant prodigy

is a good example of the polyglot Engadiners;

Romansch and German being equally current in the

valley, they are, as it were, born with a key to

Latin and Teutonic languages in their mouths. The

natural gift of tongues is sedulously fostered in the

127

The Upper Engadine

schools, and the sT^neral habit of migration perfects
and extends it. If the sayinsf attributed to Bismarck,
that a man doubles his value with every langfuage he
learns, be true, the Engadiners are worthy folk
indeed.

Sils Maria nestles cosily in a recess on the right
of the valley, behind a rocky hill which rises as an
island from the flat meadows that have supplanted
the lake. Not many years ago it was a typical little
Engadine village of the more well-to-do sort. Its
ancestral industry was fishing, the lake teeming with
trout, often running to a g;reat size. Campell states
that many of the inhabitants lived on nothing else,
eating them, he records with horror, half- raw,
without bread. Others bartered their superfluous
fish for other victuals, and ** lived more like human
beings."

The more enterprising inhabitants sought occupa-
tion abroad, and, when they had made their pile,
returned to spend it in their native village. This
combination of the migratory and the homing in-
stinct accounts for the number of substantial and
carefully built houses in a region of meagre natural
resources.

But Sils Maria was too lovely a spot to be left
unmolested. Great hotels now rise above its pictur-
esque buildings, and more are rising. No doubt
they offer within all that can be asked of an hotel,
but it could be wished that without they were more

in harmony with their surroundings.

128

The Two Sils

The names of these two villages have afforded
much exercise to etymologists. Dr Lechner, who is
not easily daunted where etymology is concerned,
dismisses Segfl as "abermals ein Name welcher den
Etymologen Kopweh gfemacht hat." I think my
wisest course is to spare my reader's head and my
own any attempt to examine it.

The older Sils, Segl Baselgia, has but lately
rescued its name from orthographical mishandling.
From the curious trick of reduplication that seems
inherent in human speech, it had long been written
Segl Baseglia, thus destroying the record of the old
basilica which was imbedded in the original name as
a fossil in a stone. The correct spelling, Segl
Baselgia, has now been officially adopted. The
retransposition of those two letters is like the res-
toration of a birthright. On what a long historical
ramble imagination sets out, starting from that rude
little building, which even stucco and pink-wash have
not been able to rob of its air of witnessing to a
vanished past.

However etymologists may differ about Sils
Maria, they all agree that it has no right, beyond
the indefeasible right given by the vox populi, to be
Maria. Santa would certainly not have been omitted
were this the original form. The most approved
opinion appears to be that the name is identical with
the mediaeval "Mayria," the German "Meierei," all
being corruptions of ** Majoria,'* the name applied to
a large property with the colonists thereto appertain-

129 R

The Upper Engadine

ing, both tenants and the "half-free folk" who were
attached to the soil.

The neighbourhood of Sils is best described by
the word idyllic, which leaps to Swiss lips whenever
they refer to it, whichever of the several languasfes of
the confederation they may speak, for the pleasant
Greek vocable has been naturalised in all. Every-
where around is the mixture of larch and pine, of
leaning crag and rugged rock and bright-hued water,
that gives the notion of having wandered through the
back-scenes of a romantic drama to find oneself
actually amid the scenery which had been crudely
suggested on the canvas. It seems quite appropriate
to meet the Bergamasc shepherds and cowherds,
bronzed in face and wild in bearing, looking in their
picturesque costumes like brigands of the first water,
till the offer of flowers in soft Italian, and a transfer
of small coin, establishes the friendly relations that
obtain naturally behind the scenes with the desperate
characters of the stage.

The Val Fex, which stretches up some five miles

in a nearly straight line to the south-east of Sils

Maria, is perhaps the most beautiful of the lateral

valleys of the Upper Engadine. From between the

pillars of the sunny, cloister-like, breakfast-gallery of

the Hotel Margna, the most striking feature in the

view is its wide-stretched glacier, seeming to sag

between the Caputschin and the Piz Led, as it were

a great white sheet let down from heaven.

A carriage road runs up the valley, mounting to

130

Val Fex

it in zigzags over the Laret (laricetum), a common
place-name in the larch-clad Upper Engadine.
Walkers may reach the Val Fex by various pleasant
paths over the Laret or, more shortly, up the Derby-
shire-like dale which the Fex has carved for its
descent through the rocky bar which probably once
dammed it up into a lake. The basin, which a lake
may once have filled, forms the first reach of the valley,
huge rocks, smoothed by ice or water, lifting their
broad, grey backs above its flowery meadows. The
picturesque cottages of two little hamlets, Platta and
Crasta, are scattered at its lower and upper ends
respectively. After Crasta, one arrives at the second
reach of the valley. On the steep green slope which
mounts to it is the picturesque little church, of which
a sketch is given, with the glittering Fex glacier and
its attendant peaks in the background.

On either side of the glacier, interesting though
somewhat toilsome passes lead to Chiesa, in the
beautiful Val Malenco, and thence down to Sondrio,
the capital of the Valtelline. In a few hours we
exchange ice-bound heights, rising above sombre
pines and cautious, close-growing Alpine flora, for
spreading groves and trellised vines, and the luxurious
breezes of the south.

The route to the right, passing by the curiously-
shaped rock, II Chapiitsch, **The Cap," is said to
have been once much used for traffic between the two
valleys. That to the left, longer and more difficult,

mounts over the Fex glacier to the Fuorcla Fex

131

The Upper Engadine

Scerseen, the saddle between the Tremoggria and
Gliischaint peaks, and descends over the Scerseen
glacier to the Val Entova and Chiesa.

The great rocky down which separates the Fex
and Fedoz valleys affords fine views ; it may be
ascended from the Val Fex, or a pleasant walk may
be had thither from Sils through the Laret, after-
wards mounting among piled and splintered masses
of mica-schist, a veritable ruina montis, to Mott Ota,
a lovely point of view. It looks down on the whole
chain of Upper Engadine lakes, seeming masses of
torquoise in an emerald setting. On the right the
beautiful Val Fex, with its scattered houses and
little chapel, mounts to the widespread glacier with
crowded peaks beyond. On the left is the wild ravine
of the Fedoz, the billowy ice-field at its head descend-
ing in a crumpled and crevassed glacier, from the
foot of which the stream meanders through a waste
of shingle till lost in the narrow winding cleft down
which it rages to its final furious leap behind I sola
to its delta. Farther to the left, a crowd of rocky
peaks ring round the abyss of blue haze which covers
the steep descent into Italy.

Still more imposing, but hardly so beautiful, is

the view obtained by walking farther along the great

down to the Plaun Grand, the Stuvetta, or the Mott

Selvas, whence is a path to the Val Fex, or one may

descend at will into the dreary Val Fedoz, and down

to I sola.

Another fine point of view is Marmor^, on the

132

Lej Sgrischus

right of the Val Fex. This also may be ascended
from the Val Fex, or directly from Sils Maria by zig-
zags that wind pleasantly through the usual mixture
of larch and crag. An interesting continuation
of this walk leads to the savage amphitheatre round
the little Lej Sgrischus, *' the shuddering lake." This
mountain tarn, 8695 feet above the sea, which is
frozen for nine months of the year, abounds in trout,
a striking instance of the hardiness of these redoubt-
able little fish. How they came there it is hard to
say, but if the tarn were stocked by human enterprise,
it must have been centuries ago, as the renting of
the fish-take is of old date.

A little further on is the Lej Alv, and above it
a delightful mountain pass, the Fuorcla da Fex-
Rosegg, connects Sils with the Mortel club-hut in
the Val Rosegg and so with Pontresina. After the
steep ascent to the pass, a glorious view of peaks
and glaciers breaks on us. The walk is easier,
though the view is less dramatic, in the reverse
direction.

If the traveller have arrived at Sils by any such
route as this, and wish a lazy day afterwards, he
cannot find a more ideal place in which to spend it
than the narrow promontory of Chast^, which
stretches half a mile into the lake in front of Sils
Baselgia. There he may saunter over larch-clad
rocks and patches of flowery meadow, or lounge on
springy undergrowth, and be filled with a great
content. The eye is satisfied with seeing, and the

133

The Upper Engadine

ear with hearing. The ripples lap upon the rocky-
shore, streams hum in the great mountain that rises
like a wall beyond the water, birds twitter in the
trees above, and the wind whispers among the
boughs, the world seems flooded with a vast, satisfy-
ing murmur which

overtakes
Far thought with music that it makes.

The promontory takes its name, Chast^, from a
castle which stood on its highest point, some ruins of
which still remain. A rock at the end is inscribed
to Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher, poet, prophet.
The apostle of unbridled individualism and self-
assertion, himself so helpless in the cruel grip of
circumstance, frequently sought to soothe life s fitful
fever in this lovely spot. Below his name are his
own lines :

O Mensch gieb acht

Was spricht die tiefe mutter Nacbt ?

Ich schlief, ich schlief,

Aus tifem Traum bin ich erwacht —

Die Welt ist tief

Und tiefer als der tag gedacht

Tief ist ihr Weh —

Lust — tiefer noch als Herzeleid :

Weh spricht : wergeh !

Doch alle Lust will ewigkeit —

Will tiefe, tiefe ewigkeit I

On the opposite shore, by Maloja, stands a block

of breccia inscribed to Thomas Henry Huxley.

134

Chast^

Confronting one another across the blue waters of
the little lake are these memorials to two men who,
spiritually, were sundered by a gulf that all the
oceans of the world would fail to represent. They
might almost be taken as types of the ineffectual and
the efficient. The one, spending great gifts in the
futile endeavour to undo all that mankind most prize,
attaining no whither, achieving nothing — nothing,
that is, at which he aimed, for I suppose that in our
interdependent modern world few men's outlook upon
life is quite the same as though Nietzsche had not
spoken. The other, frankly, even cynically, recog-
nising his limitations, and doing with his might
whatsoever he thought that his hand found to do
in the inexhaustible little world that remained, even
though it were to smite the weaker brother, who
could not live by bread alone ; that smiting of weak
brethren is, indeed, the one trait common to the
two.

There can be no doubt which was the more ex-
emplary, and which the happier man. Yet Nietzsche,
lost soul though we may deem him, was of the pro-
methean ranks from which the elect of the earth are
taken. No material attainment will make men will-
ing to spare those who deal with the obstinate
questionings of invisible things — the knowledge of
good and evil, and the fruit of the tree of life. Ten
thousand of them may fail in their high emprise, and
wander in dark and barren ways, but one, now and

then in the centuries, passing within the veil, and not

185

The Upper Engadine

blinded by the light, sees the things that men desire
to look into, and returns to his fellows to

bring some holy thing ^

Their waiting souls to cheer,
Some sacred word that he hath heard,
Which is their life to hear,

and which is worth more to them than any material
achievement. Is there any such achievement for
which mankind would give the little book of Psalms ?

Of course we need both orders of mind, and there
is no fear of our overlooking- our need of the Huxleys.
Humanity will never be so enamoured of plain living
and high thinking as to be content to sit out its
existence on a midden, singing psalms and chipping
flints.

In speaking of Huxley, as the memorial rightly
does, as he himself would doubtless have desired, as
a naturalist, one should not in these days of Educa-
tion Bills forget — though it is almost amusing to
remember — that once, on the London School Board,
he also was among the prophets.

136

CHAPTER XII

ISOLA

Walkers proceeding- up the valley from Sils may go
on either side of the lake. On its left is the high-road,
to which they must keep till they have passed the
screes of La Grappa ; then the mountain wall, seamed
with gills and festooned with cataracts up to the
sky-line, recedes and embays pleasant slopes of
pasture, rock, and forest. A path commanding fine
views, leads up these to the rude hamlets of
Gravasalvas and Blaunca, seated on the green saddle
between the Crap da Chuern and the main ridge,
whence we may descend to Capolago, at the head
of the lake. A curious streak of trias runs from
this promontory of Crap da Chuern to the Piz
Longhino.

A direct and charming path on the right of the
lake leads from Sils to Maloja, past the picturesque
little hamlet of I sola, slumbering on its green pro-
montory by the rush and roar of the tumultuous
Fedoz. As the path approaches it along the cliff its

lichen-gilded stone roofs, nestling close together

137 s

The Upper Engadine

below, form a satisfying mass of rich colour. A
quarry in the neighbouring- Val Fex is the principal
source of supply of these slate-like slices of mica-
schist that render roofs such a pleasing feature in
Engadine scenery. Behind Isola, the Fedoz descends
in a fine fall, bringing material for the delta which bids
fair to one day cut the lake in two. Already it has
annexed two little islands, and it is stretching out
its tongue to a third. At present the stream is
so thrust to the right by its own deposits that it
looks as though the next change in the scenery
would be the filling up of the bay between Isola and
Chast^.

Very interesting is the old tavern at Isola, for-
merly a country seat of the Vertemati family of
Plurs. The panelling, the cupboards, the architraves
to the doors, and the furniture are quite a study in
wood- work. In one vaulted room is an elaborately
carved bedstead with sliding doors ; at the foot are
the arms of the husband and wife for whom it was
made, with the date 1677. The common-room of
the tavern is a vaulted chamber frescoed with the
legend of *' Acteon il Curioso " ; some quaint verses in
archaic Italian condemn his indiscretions, and take
occasion from them for some excellent advice to men
in general and husbands in particular.

Following the shady path on the fringe of the
happily named Boscodella Palza, **the wood of rest,"
one passes the memorial already alluded to, a block
of breccia of igneous rocks inscribed :

138

■" *fj.»

•M*MM(«^~<fl^HI,>

Maloja

"In memory of the illustrious English writer and
naturalist, Thomas Henry Huxley, who passed
many summers at the Kursaal Hotel, Maloja.
Erected 1896."

A little farther on, at the head of the lake, are
some fine ice-smoothed rocks and ice-borne boulders.

By one or other of these ways we arrive at the
pleasant space between Sils lake and the descent
towards Italy, which goes by the name of Maloja, a
name which strictly belongs to its extreme western
edge, the nearest approach to a pass that the
truncated valley presents. At the other end is an
old hamlet known by the descriptive name of
Capolago, but houses are now scattered over the
whole space.

For the origin of the name Maloja, Maloggia in

Romansch, Maloggia in Italian, there is the usual

choice. It must be admitted that the derivation mal

alloggio, "evil abode," is very like an ill-natured pun,

and it is but natural that a locality which of late

years has laid itself out to attract visitors should

seek an etymology of better omen. The protean

resources of Celtic are, of course, equal to the

occasion, and afford Maloja and the many places

having cognate names, such as Mais, Malenco,

Malvaglia, Via Mala, ample support in repudiating

all connection with the Latin malus. Mal is said to

signify "water," and to those who recall our Welsh

maely which we are usually told means "mountain,"

the alternative is offered of taking the latter part of

139

The Upper Engadine

the name, dggia, as identical mthoicAef "water," a
word which in its resemblance to agua at once gives
an opening" for Aryan roots — I will not further
pursue the familiar path.

Unfortunately for the first impression of Maloja,
the most salient object is the huge bulk of the
Kursaal, looking grotesquely incongruous with its
surroundings. How any sane men can have erected
such a building in such a spot passes comprehension,
especially as models of better things were ready to
hand. The same expenditure would have produced
a building in the massive and picturesque Engadine
style eminently suited for winter habitation, a
purpose which, I believe, dominated the construction.
The interior of the building is a sumptuous example
of bad taste.

It is a satisfaction to think that no Engadiner is
responsible for this outrage on his native valley. It
was designed for the Belgian Comte de Renesse by
a Belgian architect. Monsieur Jules Rau. The
count having exhausted his funds, though unfor-
tunately not before the deplorable structure was
completed, the property was taken over by the Caisse
des Propri^taires of Brussels, who formed a separate
company for exploiting it. Every lover of the
Engadine must wish that the whole pack of them
had kept their financial and architectural enterprise
within their native land.

Immediately behind the Kursaal are the golf

links, the fourth provision for that seductive pastime

140

Maloji

which we have met with, and nearly as sporting as
the incalculable links at St Moritz. Dr Stuart Tidey,
in his booklet, Maloja, gives a detailed description
of their attractive difficulties and disappointments,
together with much information on the neighbour-
hood as a health resort.

Just above the links is the English church, so
light and graceful a little building that it would be
captious to object that, though it be Swiss, it is not
Engadine. Under the choir is what looks like an
open crypt, if so Hibernian an expression be per-
missible, benched and chaired as though for an
occasional service. The first Sunday that I rode
over I stabled my wheel there, with some misgiving
as to whether this were a legitimate use to which
to put a crypt, but I afterwards found that it
was but the entrance to the cellars of the Kursaal,
and that the peculiar constructions in the church-
yard, which look like stranded chimneys, were its
ventilators.

On a hillock opposite is the Roman Catholic
church. "Why here and elsewhere in this strong-
hold of Protestantism ? " the visitor may ask ; but,
in addition to Catholic visitors from all parts of the
world, there is a large and growing Italian population
in the Upper Engadine, for which its Church has to
make provision.

The employment afforded by the great develop-
ment of the " fremdenindustrie " of late years has

attracted a stream of the overflowing population of

The Upper Engadine

Italy, and especially of the industrious and skilful
Italian masons. Each census shows an increase in
the Italian-speaking- and in the Catholic population,
and the visitor s attention is continually attracted to it
Frequently, on entering- an Eng-adine cottage, one is
surprised by seeing on the walls pictures of the
Madonna and saints ; more often still, portraits of
the three latest popes, seeming an ascending spiritual
series : Pius IX., good-humoured and rus^; Leo
XIII., ascetic and statesmanlike, the very personi-
fication of pure intellect ; Pius X., enthusiastic and
unworldly. These are an almost unfailing feature
of the humble Roman Catholic interior. I fancy the
prisoner of the Vatican appeals much more strongly
to the imagination of his flock than did the ruler of
the states of the Church. Indeed, is there in our
modern world a more appealing and pathetic figure
than that venerable servus servorunty bound with
immemorial chains of tradition and routine, a belated
Canute, dutifully reciting injunctions to the heedless
waves, dimly conscious all the while that

the broad Atlantic rolls behind,
Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs.

The picturesque chalet, now an hotel, calling

itself Osteria Vecchia, was built by the unfortunate

Belgian count for his private residence. So excellent

is it that one feels that perhaps his architect, and not

himself, was responsible for the atrocities of the

Kursaal.

142

Maloja

Opposite this is another good modern chalet which
was the residence of the painter Giovanni Segantini,
of whom the Upper Engadine is justly proud, and is
still inhabited by his family. At the back is his
studio, a curious little circular building that looks
on entering more like a comprehensive library than
the workshop of a great artist, but Segantini's studio
was the Engadine. The grave of the great pointillist
is in the cemetery: a monument by Bistolfi, some-
what cryptic in design, after being in the exhibition
of 1906 at Milan, is about to be erected to his
memory by his admirers.

Through a gate on the right a road winds up
among pines and purple rocks to the Hotel Belvedere,
another abortive enterprise of the luckless Belgian,
with a nondescript air of chateau manqud. Though
not so unsightly as the Kursaal, it is far from worthy
of its superb situation on the edge of the great cliff
which rises from the Val Bregaglia. There are few
more imposing precipices in the Alps than this, set
with straight-stemmed, bronze-foliaged firs, enlivened,
wherever some little flat gives footing, with patches
of green grass and bright blossom. The grounds of
the Belvedere abound in impressive records of ice-
action, including some of the finest examples of
glacier caldrons that I know.

Just before the road begins its steep descent, is

the Maloja Kulm Inn, a substantial stone building

with an attractive air of having braved for long years

the sweeping storms of the pass. Its claim to be an

143

The Upper Engadine

ancient hospice is, I believe, doubtful, but there
was probably some hostelry here from very early
times for the many pilgrims who came to St Moritz
from Italy, The nine lofty windows of its fine
dining-hall command beautiful views in three direc-
tions.

A good idea of the neighbourhood of Maloja is
given by the sketch of the Lago di Cavloccio. The
walk to it along the valley of the Ordlegna is best
described by the hackneyed term romantic. The
path winds up through larch woods, by patches of
bronze -hued bog and pine -crested crags, ruddy
rhododendron nestling in the niches of their grey
and purple sides : often it overhangs, and always it
is within hearing of the Ordlegna, raging along its
rocky bed, over which snow-bridges linger long after
midsummer.

The history of this stream is interesting. It is
the latest affluent of the Inn captured by the
Maira; but this diversion of its waters from the
Black Sea to the Mediterranean is not immediately
due, as is that of the other streams, to the eating
back of the Alpine watershed by the Maira, but to a
great landslip on the lower slopes of the Piz Margna,
which seems to have blocked its way to the lake.
In ordinary circumstances, this would simply have
resulted in the formation of a temporary lake, the
overflow from which would soon have eroded a
channel through the loosely compacted obstruction.
At this stage, however, the advance northward of the

144

Lago di Cavloccio

Maira gave it a strategic advantage, enabling it to
offer an easier descent to the Ordlegna, which now
descends to it by several fine falls.

In the season these falls are sometimes lit up with
magnesium and Bengal lights — somewhat sophisti-
cated nature, it must be confessed, but the white
light, seeming a concentrated and transfusing moon-
light, has a singularly beautiful effect. Hardly
beautiful — in fact, only to be described as infernal, —
but very striking, is the lurid red light which gives
the falls the appearance of a sullen stream of molten
metal, such as might be imagined searing a landscape
in hell.

The lake of Cavloccio seems ringed round with

peaks, for the wooded hill which shuts it in on the

north masks the valley lying between it and the

grim rampart of mountain from which the Lagrev,

Materdell, Gravasalvas and Lunghino rise like towers.

To the east stands the rocky wall of the Tajeda,

draped with torrents and cascades: opposite to it,

on the west, the green slope of the Cavloccio Alp,

streaked with the silver threads of rushing rivulets,

rises steeply to the stony teeth of the Piz Salecina.

At the head of the boggy meadow to the north,

which not long since was probably part of the lake,

are two long, low, stone-roofed dairies, so rudely

built of the surrounding rock that they seem rather

natural features than human handiwork. Above

them to the south, presiding over all, towers the

massive Monte dd Forno, shown in the sketch,

145 T

The Upper Engadine

with the snowy Muretto pass on its left. This pass
was formerly much used for traffic between the
valleys, but the advance of the srlacier has inter-
rupted this. From it we descend, having fine views
of the majestic Monte Disgrazia on our risrht, to the
flowery Val Malenco and the inexhaustible attrac-
tions of the Valtelline.

We cannot see in the sketch, nor from the lake,
the great Forno glacier, which stretches beside and
behind the peak on the right. A magnificent survey
of this is had from the Forno club-hut, some two
hours farther on. This hut, on a jutting rock at the
base of the mountain, is set in the midst of a number
of attractive peaks. Passing the night there, and
starting while yet the snow is hard, we shall watch
the dawn steal wistfully up from the east, lighting
peak after peak with gentle, hesitating touches, as
though the day were hardly well awake, and at
length

see the great sun rise
From the narrow cornice edge.
While the snow like powder flies,
Scattered by the ice-axe edge.

Finally, resting in brilliant light on some snowy or
rocky summit, we shall have the indescribable view
which is only granted to the clear air of early
morning.

If he who seldom rises early make an excursion
such as this with a preconceived notion of what sun-
rise ought to be, he will probably be disappointed.

146

Lago di Bitabergo

In nothing does nature show herself less reciprocal
to human subjectivity than in sunrises and sunsets.
If man had had the making- of them, they would
assuredly have been interchanged. How appropriate
to the sun*s coming- forth as a bridegroom out of
his chamber should we think the frequent sunset
decoration, when the flaming curtains of heaven
seem drawn aside from far-stretched halls of light.
Instead of this, in lieu of the spacious splendour of
the evening sky, the fiery and exultant pomp which
would so fitly surround the giant rejoicing to run his
course, we have at sunrise a pervading and gentle
melancholy, almost a weariness, which would seem
more fitting for the quiet hour of rest when the long
day's, course is run. The prophet to whom the
omens of coming woe were as the morning spread
upon the mountains, was doubtless an early riser;
but can we suppose that he, the supreme poet,
who in words that are music pictured jocund day
standing tiptoe on the misty mountain tops, was
familiar with its listless, deprecatory approach?
Almost alone of English poets, Milton, as in

While the still morn went out with sandals grey,

expresses the gentle and timid advent of the dawn.

A sketch is given of the little Lago di Bitabergo,
lying amid sombre forests which keep nearly every
wind of heaven from ruffling the still surface that
mirrors them. Above, on the north, peer the grim
ramparts of Switzerland, and on the south the softer-

The Upper Engadine

hued heigrhts of Italy. A beautiful and sequestered
spot, its quietness and peace only emphasised by
the tinkle of goat-bells from the rough pastures of
Salecina, which slope up behind the pineiwoods on
the south.

148

.• •.

CHAPTER XIII

VAL BREGAGLIA

The cyclist bound to Italy from Maloja has a
deligrhtful prospect before him. Even though he be
not going on, he will do well to accord himself the
run to Chiavenna, the delight of coasting down
the many loops, bordered by stately firs, with which
the road drops to the Val Bregaglia, till he finds
himself lazily wheeling, almost on a level. Then, let
him who has a higher gear use it, and pass swiftly
through a changing panorama that will linger ever
after in his memory like a dream. Now he will run
between green meadows, and now under shady
forests, past high-perched hamlets and through
ancient villages, which, more and more, have the
flavour of history that seems to pertain to every-
thing in Italy. As always on the southern side of the
Alps, the scenery is far more imposing than that on
the north. The mountains that wall in the valley
rise more abruptly, and soar into grander peaks
against a sky of darker blue ; the tints on them are

richer and the shadows more deep; fine cascades

The Upper Engadine

tumble down their precipitous sides and brawl over
the meadows or are lost in deep ravines. Gradu-
ally the vegetation changes ; the sombre conifers
gfive place to branching chestnuts and umbrageous
walnuts ; fruit-trees appear, and trellised vines ; very
beautiful in spring is the peach and almond blossom,
and the unexpected appearance of Alpine flowers in
the grass under the budding vines. The architecture
becomes more open and unreserved, the tending of
house and garden and field more careless ; all things
remind us that we are passing into a clime where
nature is more lavish and man less strenuous. An
hour may be pleasantly loitered away in any of the
villages that are passed, and much more should be
given to the picturesque and beautifully situated little
city of Chiavenna, seeming to stand at the parting
of those different ways which are ever competing in
the traveller s plans — on the one hand, Italy, dowered
with art, romance, and hoary history ; on the other,
the grandest sanctuary that nature yet reserves to
herself in Europe.

Those who leave Maloja on foot have a variety of
attractive routes. That by the Muretto pass to the
Valtelline has been already mentioned. In the other
direction, a favourite route is by the Lunghino and
Septimer passes, and by Bivio to the railway at
Tiefenkastel ; or, mounting west from the Septimer
over gentle tarn-dotted slopes, to the Forcellina pass,
which descends to Juf, the highest hamlet in Switzer-
land that is inhabited throughout the year, a pleasant

150

Lago di Lunghino

place for a few days' stay. Supreme in the fine group
of mountains behind it, is Piz Platta, standing majesti-
cally among the hardly lesser peaks of the Jupperhorn,
the Masserspitz, and behind, the bristling teeth of
the Forbisch and Arblatsch. From Juf we may
descend to Cresta, where we get again into the
domain of the diligence, by which we may reach the
rail at Thusis, passing through the romantic gorge
which the Averserrhein has carved for itself and the
road in the fine marble of the district.

The geology of the region passed through is
most complex and interesting. In the mountains
beyond Juf, grey and green schist, serpentine,
diorite, gabbro, are mingled pell-mell with limestone,
dolomitic and marble, gypsum, corneule, as though
in a titanic and disordered museum. The Piz Platta
is built of green schist ; its neighbour the Averser-
Weisberg is of triassic limestone, partly metamor-
phosed into marble. The Forbisch and Arblatsch
are grey schist, and the Piz Grisch, by their side,
is limestone. In the region of the Piz Err, that
we have on our right in descending from the
Septimer, we seem getting to consistent grey schist,
and lo, in the midst of it, we have the Piz Toussa
of limestone, partly dolomitic.

The first two or three hours of the walk above

mentioned are by the slender, leaping stream, which

is looked on as the beginning of the Inn, to the

Lago di Lunghino, which is considered its source.

It is not perhaps a very beautiful walk, but those

151

The Upper Engadine

who, like my wife and myself, have followed the
river up from the beautiful, mountain-girt capital
of the Tyrol, which is named from bridging: it, will
not willingly forego a pilgrimage to the little lake
that is its reputed source.

It is an imposing cradle for a great riven One
comes suddenly upon it, and looking across the dark
water to the sheer wall of rock, rising into solemn
spires on the opposite side, the magnificent image
of the righteousness which stands like the strong
mountains, and the judgments which are as a great
deep, rises irresistibly to the mind. The little
stream escapes from its austere birthplace under a
bridge of frozen snow, and flings itself, wild and
white, down the steep descent to the lovely chain
of lakes in which it rests before commencing its
impetuous course to the Danube and the Black
Sea.

In the first instance the stream was probably

one of the most modest tributaries of the river it is

now taken to represent; both its slender volume,

and the fact that its direction is different to that of

the Inn, prevent its being considered as, in any real

sense, its source. The original source and all

the upper affluents of the Inn have long ago been

captured by the Maira, and diverted from the Black

Sea to the Mediterranean. If we walk on up the

neighbouring Piz Lunghino (and it is well worth

the additional walk, its isolated position rendering

it a far more commanding point of view than its

152

Retrospect

altitude of 9135 feet would lead one to expect), we
shall look down on the field of the long- battle of
the waters which descend to the two great land-
locked seas. It is the most striking example to be
found of the slow but steady encroachment of the
southern streams which is going on all along the
Alps. The more abrupt slope on the south gives
the streams greater erosive power, with the result
that they are continually eating back into the range
and thrusting the watershed to the north. Nowhere
has the result been so extensive and startling as in
the region below us.

Tracing back the course of the Inn through the
lakes, we see it ending abruptly at Maloja, making
the Upper Engadine a perfect type of a truncated
valley with no terminal amphitheatre. Where are
we to look for the original source of the great river
that must have formed it ? Heim, than whom there
can be no greater authority, thinks it was away
there, some seven or eight miles on our right, in the
Val Marozzo, at present the upper part of the Val
Bregaglia, of which the normal direction seems here
reversed. He points out that this great amphi-
theatre, both in its altitude and its direction, fulfils
the conditions required for the terminal of the valley
of the Inn. The main watershed of the Alps, he
thinks, must then have passed along a transverse
ridge somewhere above Vicosoprano, thus assign-
ing to the Inn the waters of the Val Moretta, and

probably also of the Valle Albigna, in addition to

153 U

The Upper Engadine

those of the Val Marozzo, The head-waters of the
Maira srradually eat through this ridge and, by
offering to those of the Inn a more rapid descent,
captured them for the Mediterranean.

The lakes of the Upper Engadine were thus
bereft of their parent source. The current of the
rivulet from Lake Lunghino was quite unequal to
sweeping down the deposits brought by its furious
affluents, which were thus free to form the deltas
that gradually are filling up the lakes. There were
probably then three, of which, as already mentioned,
the lowest has disappeared, the second has shrunk to
a remnant, while the dwindled waters of the third
have been silted into three. The fate, happily remote,
of those that remain would seem to be to disappear,
and this, as well as their present diminished size, is
due to the usurpation of the Maira.

I like to contemplate in imagination the large
aspect of that early world, when the old hemisphere
could still do the big things which are now only to be
found in the new. From vastly more extended ice-
fields, the Inn flowed impetuously down, an ampler
stream between loftier peaks, bearing with it without
an effort the detritus with which its turbulent
tributaries were trying to choke its lakes. Where
now stands Landeck, it was joined by the combined
waters of nearly all the lakes and rivers of Switzer-
land, for the Rhone and the Rhine had not then cut
through the rampart of rock that barred their way

to the north. Receiving on its left a comparatively

154

Prospect

insignificant contribution from the Danube, the
magnificent stream rolled eastward, **in pomp of
waters unwithstood," through dense subtropical
forests, whence huge-bodied, small-brained beasts
came to wallow by its banks, to the vast Medi-
terranean of Europe and Central Asia, of whose
waters the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of
Aral are but dwindled pools.

Already, perhaps — so some having competence in
the matter seem to think — there lurked in the shade
of those vast forests, or in caves and dens of the
earth, creatures strangely differing from all around
them, whose descendants in the distant days were to
overspread the earth and subdue it. Ill-equipped as
they seemed in the struggle for existence, they yet
had gifts that enabled them to outwit and lay low
the great beasts whose strength was an hundredfold
their own. Here and there, some of them already
gave earnest of life in spheres which beast and bird
knew not, scratching on stones and bones likenesses
of the things about them that in truth and sureness
of touch are hardly surpassed by the latest of their
descendants.

What changes, one wonders, are still to come?
How long will the solid peak beneath us withstand
the continual flux? As one looks on the "sea of
mountains" stretching, far as the eye can see, on
every side, a new aptness appears given to the
hackneyed figure. For seeing everywhere below the
flash of cataracts and the riot of descending streams,

155

The Upper Engadine

with the murmur in the air of innumerable waters,
all incessantly engfaged in the same work of trans-
formation, the '' everlasting hills" seem mutable as
the waves of ocean,

The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands ;
They melt like mists the solid lands.

Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

156

x»

CHAPTER XIV

A BOTANICAL DIGRESSION

The valley of the Upper Engadine is indebted to its
complete truncation for an element in its flora, a
flora almost as cosmopolitan as its crowd of human
visitors, and so interesting^ that a short digfression on
it may be permitted here. My remarks will be
largely second-hand, and would have no value were
they otherwise, but information on the subject is
extensive and accessible, for in no field of science have
the Swiss been more indefatigfable workers than in the
botany of their native land.

That which most attracts a stranger from lower
levels are the strictly nival and alpine plants, which
have the special biologrical character that plant-life
acquires in elevated regrions. There is no regrion so
elevated but that some hardy outpost of the vege-
table kingdom may be found there. We are apt to
think that above the snow-line, which in the Alps is
on an average a little over 8000 feet above the sea,

lies a domain of unbroken winter, a kingdom of death,

157

The Upper Engadine

devoid of all organic life. But man has yet to find on
his little planet an altitude sufficient for this ; even the
pink tint often noticeable on the eternal snow, is due
to myriads of microscopic algs, protococcus nivalis,
and, apart from such nomadic vegetation, these
inclement upper resrions enshrine a tenacious flora
peculiar to themselves. Nowhere is this so well repre-
sented as in the Grisons Alps, where Heer has noted
IDS species, whereas the higfhest registered for any
other part of Switzerland is 47. In small, scattered
areas, amid rock and snow and ice, we find such
plants as eritrichium nanum, androsace helvetica and
glacialis, silene acaulis and excapa, draba Zahlbruck-
neri, persisting under the most trying conditions:
intense sunshine during the day, intense cold at
night, frequent snowfall, capricious and uncertain
seasons.

Existence under such conditions has been ren-
dered possible only by the evolution of a peculiar
character — a close, crouching growth, a creeping
habit, spreading rhizomes, exquisite little tufts of
downy leaves which last several years, flowers with-
out peduncles, often of brilliant colour; only the
most persistent and cautious plants can hold their
own, for it is not every summer that their seeds
mature.

Below the nival flora, between 5000 and 8000

feet above the sea, is the alpine, which, though

they are fiot subject to such rigorous conditions,

have to reckon with great extremes of tempera-

158

A Botanical Digression

ture, a long winter's burial in snow, a relatively dry
climate, yet frequent envelopment in cloud and mist.
They have to restrict their active life to the short
period, the shorter as the altitude increases, during
which the daily sunshine is sufficient to return to
the ground more heat than is taken off at night ;
the draves, saxifrages, and associated plants can
count on but fifty days or so in which to decorate
themselves with leaves and expand their delicate
blossoms.

Alpine plants are, of course, much more numerous
than nival ; in the Grisons 500 specimens have been
noted above 6ocx5 feet. Like the nival, they have
evolved certain characteristics in adapting themselves
to their environment ; they are, in general, intensely
herbaceous, giving vigour rather to operations under-
ground than to those which meet the eye ; the leaves,
frequently arranged in rosettes, are often downy, the
flower-buds carefully protected; many species mass
themselves in cushions or closely packed tufts; in
fact, all proceedings are dominated by the necessity
of strict economy of organic development. Some
exhibit a curious viviparous habit; as soon as the
flowers are fully developed, the stalk begins to bend
down towards the earth, where the seeds penetrate
and take root. The viviparism of others recalls the
marsupials of the animal kingdom ; in the poa alpina,
one of the fodders most esteemed by Swiss cattle, and
common to the Alps, the Caucasus, the Himalaia
and the polar regions, each spikelet grows into a tiny

159

The Upper Engadine

plant while still, like a little kangfaroo, upon the
parent breast, and falls, ready rooted and leaved,
to the srround.

It migrht be expected that the net result of all
these conditions would give a certain uniformity
to the Alpine flora, and, to some extent, this is the
case ; but, regarded in its entirety, it is rather diver-
sity than uniformity that strikes us. Still more
are we struck by the marked variety as we enter
the strictly Alpine domain from the lower slopes.
As a rule, the upper plant-life of a mountain region
has been evolved from that of the neighbourhood
immediately below, but the peculiarity of the rich
Alpine flora is that it includes a large number of
forms which have no near relatives on the foot-
slopes as, to take but familiar examples, rhododen-
dron and edelweiss. Their relatives must be sought
within the Arctic circle, or in Siberian tundras, or
on the far-off mountains of northern and eastern
Asia.

The present conditions in the Alps are not suffi-
ciently similar to those of these distant regions to
explain this similarity of the flora. The explanation
is written on tables of stone which hold the geological
record of conditions long passed away. I n the M iocene
and Pliocene deposits of the Swiss plateau, we find
fossil remains which show that at those epochs the
regions near the Alps were covered with a plant-life
of which some representatives now survive in the

uplands ; only some, for in the age of glacial exten-

160

A Botanical Digression

sion most of these Tertiary forms perished; for
instance, hardly any representatives survive of the
evergreen trees and shrubs, which, as Jaccard
remarks, must have given the country an aspect
very like that of Japan to-day. Certain plants, how-
ever, saved themselves by migration southward,
there to form the ancestral stock of many Mediter-
ranean types of the present day, and, at the time of
glacial shrinkage and rising temperature, remounted
to their old home.

Again, past geological conditions explain the
Asiatic relationship of the Alpine flora, which is, in
fact, a witness to the singular continuity and unifor-
mity of the great mountain ranges of the northern
hemisphere at the close of the Tertiary epoch. Per-
haps the most striking instance of this persistent
witness are the widely separated little communities
of plants that are islanded among endemic flora
over a distance of eight thousand miles. The
classical example is the pleurogyne carinthiaca,
the little gentian which is found in a few places
in the Swiss Alps, in the Carinthian Moun-
tains, the West Caucasus, and the Altai. On
the other hand, edelweiss is a familiar example of
an alpine species whose relatives are found in
Asiatic and Russian steppes. There are said to
be meadows of it in Siberia, where it grows a foot
high.

Geology also holds the key to the unlooked-for

presence in the Alps of arctic forms, such as the

161 x

The Upper Engadine

arctic willow, the dwarf juniper, silene acaulis,
saxifrago oppositifolia, dryas octopetala, myosotis
alpestris, azalea procumbens. Fossil remains in the
peat-beds of central Europe show that arctic and
alpine plants were similarly associated there during
the later Tertiary period, when the vast moraines of
glaciers from the north and from the Alps must
have been within reach of one another by wind-borne
seeds. It is said that the same mingling of arctic and
alpine types forms the prevalent flora of north-
eastern Asia at the present day. As the Alpine
glaciers receded, this flora slowly mounted, taller
and more branching types closely following on its
heels and gradually supplanting it One of the
results of this bataille des fleurs recalls that of
shorter and sharper human wars. Ethnologists
tell us that, in our own islands, it is in fens and
uplands that "fragments of forgotten peoples dwell" ;
so, in the Alps, it is in boggy spots and on hum-
mocks that these arctic plants most hold their
own.

To the slow, peaceful penetration from the north,
the truncation of the upper valley of the Inn added a
more merciless invasion from the south. Just as the
engineers and navvies who made the railway cuttings
through the Appalachians are said to have unwit-
tingly opened a pathway of migration along which
floral hordes from the great central plains of North
America have slowly pressed, invading and dispos-
sessing the less hardy denizens of the Atlantic slope,

162

A Botanical Digression

so the great gap made in the Alpine ridge by the
eating back of the Maira has given an opportunity
for the vigorous and crowded plant-life of Italy to
overflow into Switzerland. To some extent this has
occurred at every pass in the main chain of the Alps,
but nowhere are the conditions so favourable as here,
and nowhere have they been so largely taken ad-
vantage of; throughout the Upper Engadine we find
Mediterranean types mingled with the peculiar flora
of the Alps.

The invaders found a plant-life that, after slowly
conforming itself to sub-glacial conditions, had been
left in possession of the Alps, from which the glaciers
had retreated, and where more genial conditions
prevailed. No doubt it had, age by age, been adding
cubits to its stature and discarding superfluous roots
and unneeded down, but the time allowed for it to
adapt itself to its changed environment was too short
— short, that is, as time is counted by nature, to
whom a thousand years are as one day — the adapta-
tion was not sufficiently complete, to enable it to
exclude the vigorous invaders whom the Maira let
loose on it. It was out-topped and overshadowed by
the new-comers, who are probably more and more
crowding it out.

The most impressive among these survivals of a
past geological epoch is the majestic aroUa or
cembra pine, which gives a characteristic aspect
to the scenery of the Upper Engadine. There is
something singularly old-world in its stately bear-

163

The Upper Engadine

ing, its gnarled, massive trunk and twisted bougfhs,
bending under sombre, rounded masses of closely-
packed tufts of needles. A solitary aroUa, such
as one often sees standing amid more modern vege-
tation, seems like Keats' Saturn, the melancholy
monarch of a kingdom that has passed away,
living on in a world where all things have become
new.

In its habits, too, it maintains the leisurely pro-
cedure of the early days of time ; its cone takes three
years to mature, and the seeds a year to germinate ;
a natural consequence is that it is being gradu-
ally superseded by trees having speedier modern
methods. Its excellences combine with its' short-
comings in promoting its disappearance; its slowly
formed timber is much prized for building, the
hardly perceptible difference between the autumn
and spring growth giving it great uniformity from
the absence of annual rings, and its dilatory seeds,
known as nuschells, are looked on as a delicacy,
not only by birds, mice, and squirrels, but by
men.

The association of this venerable tree with the

larch is very remarkable. "They are allied," says

the great Swiss botanist, Christ, "in the closest

friendship, and remain faithful to one another

throughout the whole continent, even to the eastern

extremity of Asia." It is pleasant to think of

their association as friendly fellowship, but it may

be doubted if they be not rather joined in mortal

164

A Botanical Digression

struggle, in which the stately representative of
an earlier world is foredoomed to succumb.
Happily, the careful afforestation of the Federal
government may redress the ruthless indifference
of nature.

165

CHAPTER XV

PONTRESINA

Having traced the main valley of the Upper Enga-
dine from the tunnel to its termination, let us turn to
the side valley of the Bernina, the entrance of which
is shown in a sketch. The long street of Pontresina
stretches on either side of a mile of the road, the Piz
Langfuard risings above it ; the two have been coupled
by the native poet, Caratsch, in lines that I will not
insult the reader's ingenuity by translating^ :

Piz Languard e Pontresina,
Pontresina e Piz Languard,
Sun ils puncts in Engiadina,
Chi tiran uoss'il s-guard
Dels tourists da tuots pajais,
Specielmaing des Lords inglais.

At present English tourists are by no means exclu-
sively drawn from the peerage, while, though nearly
every country is still represented, Germans are in
overwhelming majority.

How the three villages, Laret, Spiert, and

Giarsun, came to be called Pontresina, and whence

166

Pontresina

this word and what it means, are debated questions.
It is commonly interpreted the "Saracenic bridge,"
and the etymology, right or wrong, is one of the many
reminders of the strange intrusion of the sons of the
desert into the Alps in the tenth century. It was
more than a passing wave, for, while their swoop on
the loot of Italy was stayed, the return whence they
came was cut off by the burning of their ships, and
they remained established in the passes with some-
thing like a licence to pillage from Hugo, King of
Italy, who little recked that merchant and pilgrim
were unsafe, so only the Alps gave no passage to
Berengar II. and his northern helpers. On the
fall of Hugo, they still remained, and organised a
system of blackmail; ultimately they must have
formed one of the heterogenous elements of the
population; the curious in such matters claim that
distinct traces of them in complexion, build, and
feature can be found in many parts of Switzerland
to this day.

Whether a bridge over the Bernina beck was
built by, or named after, the Saracens, or whether,
as all languages use, a word of which the origin had
been lost was unconsciously moulded into a form
that gave it some sort of meaning, I will not
venture even to discuss; certain it is that the
etymology is of ancient date, for in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries the dominant family in the valley,
who were hereditary representatives of the bishops

of Chur^till 1244, when they fell into disfavour and

167

The Upper Engadine

were superseded by the Plantas, called themselves
the Lords of Ponte-Sarazeno. La Tuor, the pen-
tagfonal tower above Pontresina, is probably the
remains of their stronghold ; a subterranean passage
formerly connected it with Giarsun. The tower is
also known as Spaniola, which, as the Saracens
came to the Alps through Spain, supports the
etymology mentioned above.

Near this tower is the ancient little church
of Santa Maria, with a roof dated 1497; the
Romanesque belfry is very much older. This
church is notable as having been the first of
the Upper Engadine in which Protestantism was
installed.

At the commencement of the great schism, the
government of the three leagues, after listening to
incontrovertible arguments on both sides in a theo-
logical conference at Ilanz, in January 1526, decided
to be perfectly neutral, leaving individual consciences
free, and allowing each commune to decide for itself
to which persuasion it would belong. Thus the
people settled for themselves the question that con-
cerned them so deeply, which in the rest of Europe
was mainly decided over their heads by rulers who
were often actuated by considerations far from
religious. Except in cases in which the parish priest
himself became Protestant, the question seems to
have been seldom raised until his death; then the
commune debated whether a successor should be

accepted, or a pastor called.

168

Pontresina

This was the situation at Pontresina in November
1549. A Sunday was appointed for the decision of
the question. The Saturday before, an unknown
wayfarer from over the Bernina pass arrived at the
village tavern, and, talking over the matter with his
host, expressed a wish to be heard on the morrow.
The principal men of the commune had an informal
preliminary discussion that night at the tavern, and
the host, himself a leading burgher, preferred the
stranger's request, but there was a general objection
to an outsider meddling in the matter. Then the
stranger rose. He was an elderly man of com-
manding presence, with the air of one accustomed
to be heard when he would. After a few sentences
he had the meeting in his hand, and addressed
them in closely reasoned, burning words on the
subject of which their minds were full; when
he ended, all crowded round him and begged him
to speak to the whole commune the next day in
church.

He was Pietro Paolo Vergerio, one of the most

striking characters of that crowded time. Born of

a noble family, receiving the highest education, first

in law then in divinity, that the universities of Italy

could give, the trusted adviser and the diplomatic

representative of two popes, a quiet and effective

reformer in two successive bishoprics, noted of all

men for the cardinalate, he had fallen under the

evil eye of the Holy Office, and been reduced

to silence and inactivity. At length, despairing of

169 y

The Upper Engadine

internal reform, he had cast in his lot with the
schism.

Under Vergerio's influence the little mountain
commune was as clay in the hands of the potter.
Twice the following day, and again on the Monday,
he addressed them, with the result that they unani-
mously decided for reform, and under his leading
clinched the decision by an irrevocable step. The
altar, the relics of the saints, the sacred images and
pictures, were borne from the church to the Punt
Ota, escorted by the whole population, and cast into
the deep gorge of the raging Bernina beck. Some,
indeed, urged that this was wasting a public asset,
which might be sold to the neighbouring Catholic
valley, but such weak-kneed councils were over-ruled
by the argument that the Engadiner's poison could
not be the Valtelliner's meat.

Perhaps the proposal was not so sordid as it

seems, but rather a pretext, such as that by which

the diplomatic Reuben saved Joseph's life. When

we consider what a centre of civic and family life

a parish church was in those days, we feel there

must have been many who could not see without a

pang the destruction of objects with which all their

tenderest and most sacred memories were intertwined.

They had ceased, perhaps, to have any hold on their

intellect, but they were landmarks and memorials in

the shadowy borderland of being, where the soul

does its real business, leaving the intellect to find

grounds for it as best it may.

170

Pontresina

The English church at Pontresina is a tasteful
building in irregularly shaped blocks of grey, green,
and brown stone, of excellent effect. An inscription
in it records that it was raised through the persever-
ing energy of the Rev. J. W. Ayre during his
chaplaincy, 1877-91, from designs prepared by, and
the gift of, R. P. PuUan, F.R.I.B.A. The wooden
columns, and the large use of woodwork, give to the
interior a peculiarly pleasing and restful character,
somewhat marred by crudely coloured glass. And
here, greatly daring, and not having, for the moment,
the fear of architects or ecclesiastics before my eyes,
I venture to suggest to those planning churches in
the Alps that where the windows can give view of
scenery, foliage, or mountain side — or, it may be, but
of sky and cloud — these have more blessing for eye
and soul than any but the best stained glass. Of
course, the worst is preferable to the walls and
windows of an hotel, that are sometimes the only
alternative.

Pontresina is more fortunate than St Moritz in

having preserved a large number of its old houses.

They stand on either side of the long street, quaint

and picturesque, but often sadly malodorous. The

broad-arched entrance doors, frequently carved and

panelled, have a wicket for human beings, but, when

opened to their full extent, are wide enough to admit

carts and cattle. Everything goes into the capacious

maw of the dim entrance hall, from which open out

stairs, doors, and mysterious vaults and passages,

171

The Upper Engadine

SrivinsT access to the various necessities of family and
animal life. The cattle always strike one as the
most important and considered inmates of the normal
Swiss homestead, but in the Upper Engadine they
have severe competitors in the flocks of tourists who
have brought a wealth surpassing the cattle on a
thousand hills, and for whose requirements many of
these picturesque old houses at Pontresina have
evolved clean and comfortable apartments which can
be rented for a prolonged stay.

The last house in the village is the ancient Hotel
Steinbock, the older part of which is the typical and
substantia] mountain inn of former days, perhaps
the very one in which Vergerio settled the theo-
logical perplexities of the commune. It has enlarged
itself by two successive additions, each departing more
unfortunately than the last from the excellent original.
When I last saw it, a still larger addition was rising
in front of it, which, I hope, will be worthy of the
parent building. But here I bethink me of a timely
admonition on the charming old archway that leads
to the garden of the original inn —

LA CRITICA AIS FACILLA,
IL SAVAIR DIFFICIL.

Perhaps it would have been well had I had these wise
words before me when making some of the observa-
tions that have fallen too lightly from my pen. If

instead of criticising hotels I had set myself to

172

Pontresina

destgrn one, what a laughter-stock should I have
produced, how successfully I should have combined
the ruin of the proprietor with the discomfort of his
guests.

Pontresina is happier than most places of resort
in the Upper Engadine in not being shut away from
the great snow mountains. Laret commands a
magnificent view of the Rosegg glacier and
attendant peaks, and from Giarsun we see the
triple snow-crown of the Piz Palii, rising serenely
above the rocky Chalchagn, while the many paths
through the larch woods on the right open out
delightful views of the glaciers which converge into
the Morteratsch glacier and of the superb masses
of the Piz Bernina and the hardly lesser peaks
around it.

It is true that Pontresina is not one of those places,
in fact, there are none such in the Upper Engadine,
which is dominated, and, as it were, possessed, by a
great mountain. Few holidays are more delightful,
or leave a more indefeasible heritage to the memory,
than those passed in such companionship, becoming
daily more familiar with all its aspects, knowing its
individual response to the revolving hours and the
varying weather, which it seems more to control than
to be subject

Sunrise and sunset lay thereon
With hands of light their benison ;
The stars of midnight pause to set
Their jewels in its coronet*

173

The Upper Engadine

The robe of storm, the golden glory of the noon,
the interwoven hues of evening, and the magic of
the night, appear rather vestures that it assumes
and changes at its will than conditions imposed
on it by the atmosphere. Though it cannot be
said that Pontresina is presided over by any such
sovereign presence, yet no place of resort in
the Upper Engadine offers so near an approach
to it.

The proximity of the Rosegg and Morteratsch
glaciers, and the superb peaks around them, makes
Pontresina the best centre for mountaineering in the
valley, while, as compared with many such centres
in Switzerland, it has the advantage that ascensions
commence at over 6000 feet above the sea. Few
can stay there without feeling an irresistible attrac-
tion towards those serene and radiant heights. Even
those who are not habitual mountaineers may well
be tempted by facility of access to make trial of the
cosy discomfort and good-fellowship of a club-hut,
and the versatile companionableness of an ice-axe,
and taste the supreme enchantment of that great
white world which to all those on whom it has once
laid its spell must ever seem the fairest thing on
earth.

Of course, like all popular places, Pontresina
suffers to a certain extent from being appreciated.
Those who gibe at the Upper Engadine as a trans-
cendent tea-garden have a special gibe at Pontresina ;

but the garden is so very transcendent, so lovely, so

174

b b b

b
.•

Piz Languard

extended, so varied, so full of retreats of wild, sweet
beauty, so continually rising into points of view
whence one looks inimitably across the high places
of the earth above man's dwelling and domain,
that the term, if it be insisted on, is freed from all
opprobrium.

Seldom do crowded places have within a few
minutes of them, walks of such beauty as the many
paths of the Schlucht promenade along the left bank
of the deep ravine of the Bernina beck. The many-
hued cliffs, grey, red, purple, grasped by straight-
stemmed, snaky-rooted pines, are writ with records
of the stream's former course, the curve of waterfalls,
the winding and widening and narrowing of its
channel, the swirl and sweep of its current, the deep
holes ground by stones revolved in its eddies, as it
gradually wore down its bed to that along which it
now frets and fumes, incessantly bearing away the
substance of staid and sober Switzerland to make
land for the restless peoples of the Danube and the
Black Sea.

The great points of view are on the other side.

The most famous is the Piz Languard ; a beautiful

walk leads to it, but, if preferred, one can ride to

within an hour of the top. The earlier the start the

better, for the sake both of a cool walk and a clear

view. Few will regret the struggle by which they

have left bed in the small hours of a moonlit

summer morning, especially if they have the luck to

see the landscape clad in the weird, iridescent hues

175

The Upper Engadine

which sometimes result from the blending of moon-
light and dawn.

The view is very beautiful from the Languard
Alp, which is reached in about an hour. This Alp
has long been rented by Bergamasc shepherds, whose
large hut is passed on the right of the path. The
flora now becomes very interesting, and those not
going up the peak may have a pleasant ramble up
the Val Languard on the right. At its head a little
light-blue tarn lies under the cliffs of green schist
which support the Languard glacier. The mountain
has been made a sanctuary for marmots, and the
droll, furtive little creatures are evidently aware of
the security afforded them.

A few years ago someone, not, I am pleased to
believe, an Engadiner, had the unfortunate idea of
erecting a platform over the whole summit of the
peak, on which refreshments, postcards, and various
vanities were purveyed. But not always does
nature brook the profanation of her high places.
The audacious structure was struck by lightning and
burnt ; rebuilt, only to be struck and burnt again ;
since which the concessionaires have been content to
vend their wares at a safer level, leaving the summit
as nature made it.

Words cannot describe, nor could pages catalogue,

the far-spread multitude of peaks and ranges which

crowd the view. Baedeker and others have provided

useful panoramas for identifying them. I believe

Herr Lardner has made out a list of nearly a thou-

176

Muottas Muraigl

sand summits having a recognised name. As a
native poet sings :

Mini munts mieus ogls scoveran ;

Majestus ais il reguard.
Mieus immaints k Dieu's prosteman

Som k te, bel Piz Languard.^

The descent can be made by a more difficult route
over the Languard glacier, by the icy Leg della
Pishna and the flowery Val del Fain, to the Bernina
houses, four and a half miles above Pontresina.

Another favourite point of view is the Muottas
Muraigl, from which a sketch is taken. A cable
railway is being constructed to it from Punt Muraigl,
a station on the rail between Samaden and Pontre-
sina, and a large hotel will be built near the little
restaurant which appears in the sketch. One regrets
the scar upon the hillside made by the railway, but
time will to some extent heal it, and one cannot regret
that so delightful a spot should thus be made
accessible to many who could not otherwise get to it.
A splendid situation for an hotel it will be, rising
steeply from the flat green floor of the valley, where
the turbid Flaz joins the tranquil Inn. In front lie
the Upper Engadine lakes, like the successive reaches

* My eyes survey a thousand mountains ;
Majestic is the prospect.
My inmost being bows to God
On thy summit, fair Languard peak.

Conradin de Flugi, who died at St Moritz in 1874, and is looked
on as the father of lyric poetry in Romansch.

177 Z

The Upper Engadine

of a broad blue river, which, in the short intervals of
forest, may be imagined creeping along some deep-
worn gorge. To the right is the pinnacled ridge of
the lower Julier range ; to the left, the Rosegg valley
with the glaciers and peaks at its head. Still more
to the left is the view given in the sketch, the steep
northern slope of the Chalchagn, and the shining
summits and far-flung snows of the Bellavista, Palii,
and Cambrena peaks.

Behind, the Val Muraigl offers charming rambles ;
one can go over rock-strewn pastures and by a
fascinating little tarn to the Fuorcla Muraigl, the
saddle between the Piz Vadret and the Piz Muraigl,
the latter having the famous Languard behind it,
and the three imposing peaks of Las Sours, "the
sisters," in front. From the Fuorcla we can descend
into the Val Priinas, an upper reach of the Val
Camogasc, stretching in a broad, green basin under
the northern precipices of the Languard.

For view, for air, for rambles round, an hotel
could hardly be more happily placed ; only, I trust
that those who project it will remember that they
are not doing this thing in a corner; from nearly
the whole of the Upper Engadine men will perforce
look up to what they build; let them see to it that
it be worthy of its site.

Crossing the Muraigl stream from the Muottas,
we can walk to the Schaffberg, whence we have a
finer view than from the Muottas Muraigl of the
snow-peaks and glaciers of the Bernina region, but

178

Giovanni Segantini

not the lovely vista of the Upper Engadine valley.
Here is a memorial to Giovanni Segantini, who for
some time before his death was occupied in painting
the magnificent view of those peaks and glaciers.
Here, one winter's day in 1899, he was found dead
in the snow.

Could kindliest fortune fairer parting send

than amid the wild nature that he loved, and in face
of the great landscape that had cast so strong a spell
upon him?

179

CHAPTER XVI

THE ROSEGG AND MORTERATSCH VALLEYS

Pontresina's two main entrances to the higher

Alpine world are by the Rosegg and Morteratsch

valleys. A carriage road leads up the former to the

little hotel-restaurant, about two miles from the

foot of the glacier. Walkers may go there by the

Riissellas promenade, than which there are few

more charming woodland walks. On one side is

the brawling beck, growing finely boisterous in

steep descents, or among impeding rocks; on the

other the great mountain wall of the Chalchagn

now advances in slopes of screes, now recedes in

bays of wooded cliff. Here and there the larch

woods open out into druidic spaces where great

grey rocks stand amid the grass.

Occasionally one may put up a chamois, for the

triangle of rugged mountain between the Bernina

and Rosegg valleys has been made a sanctuary for

hunted creatures, who are fully aware of the fact.

This security is of recent date; on the other side

J 80

Rosegg Valley

of the river is Ada Colani, which in the first half
of last century was a lodge of the mighty hunter,
Gian Marchet Colani, "the king of the Bernina," of
whose masterful, generous character, strange gifts,
and daring exploits many tales are told. After an
apprenticeship as a gunsmith in France, he returned
at the age of eighteen to his native valley, where
during such intervals as he could spare from the
chase, he plied his trade, first at Madulein, and
afterwards at Pontresina. Here he died in 1837,
having, it was computed, accounted for some 2700
chamois in the course of his life.

An interesting attempt was made some time ago
to introduce reindeer here. They are said to have
thriven, but did not breed, and were ultimately sold
to the King of Italy.

The sketch gives the view at the head of the

valley. In front is the pleasant, primitive little inn ;

beyond it the glacier, for a long time receding, has

left the usual mean and desolate disorder that nature

has not had time to shape and clothe. Further are

the combined glaciers of the Rosegg and Tschierva,

above which we see the wide, white terraces and

steps of the Rosegg, but have only a glimpse of

the chaotic cataract of ice in which the Tschierva

descends from the Piz Bernina. Between the two

glaciers is the rocky Aguagliouls, a curious reserve of

vegetable life islanded in the ice, on which, I believe,

two hundred different kinds of plants have been

counted. In the height of the summer the Bergamasc

181

The ' Upper Engadine

shepherds drive their sheep across the glacier to
graze there.

In the background, from right to left, are the
Caputschin and Mongia peaks, then the broad gap of
the Fuorcla Gliischaint, the Piz Gliischaint, the
double summit of la Sella, and, hidden in the clouds,
Piz Rosegg.

The Swiss Alpine Club, to whom both moun-
taineers and tourists are so much indebted, has huts
on either side of this imposing scene ; the Mortel hut,
grandly placed opposite Aguagliouls, on the left of
the glacier, and the Tschierva hut on the right,
commanding views of the glittering bulges and blue-
green seams of the great ice-fall which descends from
the majestic Bernina and Rosegg peaks. Memory,
as one gazes at it, crosses the Atlantic: it is as
though a mightier and more turbulent Niagara had
been stayed by an icy hand in its headlong course,
and all its tumult stereotyped.

In the pleasant walk, already mentioned, over the
Fuorcla Surlej, from which we can descend on St
Moritz, Campfer, Silvaplana, or Sils, we have a
striking change from this great white landscape,
which seems blocked out in light and shade, to the
rich hues and quiet beauty of the lakes and woods
stretched below on the other side.

The Morteratsch glacier is Pontresina's other
gateway to the upper world. Driving to it along the
high-road on the right of the valley, to which the
Languard leaps down in a fine fall, the grand group

182

"••

» «

The Morteratsch Glacier

of mountains is gradually disclosed. Walking through
the larch woods on the left of the valley, and emerg-
ing from them at the little inn, or on the ice-smoothed
rocks of the Chunetta, the view bursts on us with a
suddenness quite theatrical. Immediately below the
Chunetta, the glacier sprawls in shapeless bulges
of dirty ice and long heaps of rubble. Beyond
are wide, white steps mounting to a vast and
shining hall, to which the Morteratsch and Pers
glaciers descend from the far-spread terraces of ice
below the peaks of Boval, Morteratsch, Rosegg,
Bernina, Crast Agiizza, Zupo, Bellavista, Palii, and
Pers.

The little inn and restaurant is set pleasantly
between the edge of the larch wood and the pines
that lean over the turbid stream from the glacier,
with this stately pageant before it. I wish the artist
had been moved to give us a sketch from it, but he
was probably there under conditions that made
sketching impossible. Most persons know the place,
as I first did, as a maddening babel. All day long
vans and lesser vehicles disgorge their close-packed
occupants, and a stream of pedestrians pass through
on their way up or down the valley. But one
summer evening I arrived there from over the glacier,
after walking from early dawn ; the last tourist had
gone; the tired maids were lazily playing with St
Bernard dogs upon the grass ; I had my supper at a
little table on the green carpet between the larch

wood and the rushing stream, in front of me the

183

The Upper Engadine

majestic Piz Palii, set on high in the lingeringr light,
like the great white throne of the Apocalypse; it
seemed a beautiful and peaceful spot, such as may
have been that garden of the early world where God
walked in the cool of the day.

184

CHAPTER XVII

THE BERNINA VALLEY

On the other side of the Morteratsch stream a path

mounts to the beautiful falls by which the Bernina

beck descends among^ purple rocks from the upper

reach of the valley. The path crosses the stream by

a bridg^e at the finest part, and leads to the old paved

and grass-grown road. We continue by this among

huge rocks smoothed by some departed glacier and

its succeeding streams, now leaving, now joining, the

blue river, whitening into falls or flowing swift and

silent in deep translucent pools, and finally enter the

high-road. Of the many lovely paths near Pontre-

sina, none, I think, is lovelier than this.

About a mile beyond are the three quaint Bernina

houses, a typical old mountain inn, evidently prepared

to be buried in snow every winter. Behind them

stands Piz Alv, **the white peak," a huge, bare cone

of limestone, sole surviving legacy of the sea, which

once covered the granite and schist around. A

striking contrast to its dusty bareness is the ruddy

185 2 A

The Upper Engadine

granite of the neighbouring Piz Lagalb, clothed with
hardy vegetation.

Behind Piz AIv, the Val da Fain, '' Hay Vale,"
stretches up for about six miles, a veritable botanical
garden, in one part or the other of which, it is said,
nearly every alpine plant is to be found.

Almost parallel to it is Val Minftr, "Miner's
Vale," where are still traces of a shaft worked in the
Middle Ages by the Vertematis, one of whose houses
has been described in speaking of Isola. From this
mine, tradition says, they despatched every Saturday
to their home in Plurs, mules laden with the silver,
and sometimes gold, which had been extracted during
the week. Plurs was destroyed by a landslip in
1618, but before this the Val Minftr appears to have
been purchased, along with Bernina Alp, by the
distant commune of Bondo, whence every year cattle
are still driven to it over the Maloja pass, along
the Inn lakes and up the Bernina valley, one of
those curious instances of the long arm of cowherd-
ing which are continually met with in the Swiss
mountains.

Following the almost level road, we pass the Lej

Minftr, then the Lej Nair, ** Black Lake," the waters

of which, filtered through peat, are of an inky purple.

Separated from it by a few yards of pasture, and in

such sharp contrast of colours as to seem almost

unreal, is the Lej Alv, ** White Lake," filled by the

turbid stream from the Cambrena glacier with

greenish-white water. The contrast is, I believe,

186

The Bernina Pass

reproduced in the trout abounding in them, which
are of a light and dark colour respectively. This
narrow strip of earth is the watershed between the
Inn, descending to the Black Sea, and the Adda to
the Mediterranean ; occasionally, it is said, a wind
from the south or east, funnelled and furious in the
pass, drives the white waters over into the black, and
temporarily unites the lakes. Presumably at such
times the white trout lie low, or the distinction
between the breeds would have been lost, but those
who deal in the romance of lower life might construct
a tale of companion animalcules, separated on this
bleak neck of mountain and meeting in the sunny
waters of the Bosphorus.

Large stumps of arolla have been found in the
peaty ground near these lakes, showing that there
must have once been a forest here, though trees now
cease nearly a thousand feet lower down. It is said
that within historic times there has also been wood
in the neighbouring Val Minftr, which is now quite
bare of it. Lechner mentions a document of the
fourteenth century, when the ownership of the valley
seems to have been rather complicated, by which an
alp there is rented to Geurg Crapp for 4 imperial
pounds and 2 steres (half a cubic metre) of arolla,
and another by which Janon de Laret undertakes to
look after Crapp's sawmill for 45 soldi, "good Enga-
dine currency."

All over the Alps are records of a similar change
of the tree limit, indicating some change of conditions.

187

The Upper Engadine

We continually see dead, or half-dead, aroUa — ^stretch-
ing gaunt, bare limbs — beyond the farthest outposts
of the present forest ; sometimes, as on a plateau by
the Iffigensee, we come across a whole forest, only
just dead, standing, pale and spectral, amid the
undergrowth. Some Swiss geologists think that
this is due to the slow, secular elevation of the earth's
crust, which, in the long lifetime of an aroUa, might
have raised trees growing near the limit, above the
altitude at which reproduction was possible; a
curious contrast to the destruction of forests by
depression along our own coasts, or, to go further
back, in our coal basins. It seems to be all one to
nature whether she thus treasure up the outcome
of her long and patient labour, or squander it as in
these old forests of the Alps. We are happy in our
land, having been deaft with when she was in one of
her saving moods.

The Bernina hospice stands on the high-road
above the Lej Alv, as shown in the sketch. A tablet
on its west wall marks the level of snow on 24th May
1879 — twelve metres, I was told, above the ground.

The pass, like most passes, does not command a
very extensive view, and it is well worth while to
walk up Piz Campascio, about an hour to the south-
east of the hospice. Its pleasant grassy top lies
sheer above the steep descent by which the road
winds, like a great white snake, to the green valley
and blue, wood - embosomed lake of Poschiavo.
Beyond, stretch range upon range of deep-hued

188

f !

Descents to Italy

Italian mountains. On the right is the giant stair
of the Palii glacier and the serene snows of the Piz
Cambrena, below which the Lej Alv and Lej Nair
lie, side by side, like slabs of green and purple slate.

The cyclist who is taking the pass on the way to
Italy or the Ortler will be repaid for some hard
pedalling by the fine run down that serpentine road.
If he be not going on, he will do well to leave his
wheel at the hospice and take the enchanting foot-
path down on the right, returning, if he like, in the
post. This is, in any case, the pleasanter route for
pedestrians. A short and interesting digression may
be made to the quaint round huts of Sassal Massone
in front of the Palii glacier. Soon after this, we come
to the view from the Alp Griim, of which a sketch is
given. In striking contrast to its white magnificence,
we have, far below on the other side, the lovely valley
of Poschiavo. To this the pleasant path descends.
At the head of the lake are the sulphur baths of
Prese ; at its lower end, the village of Meschino, the
little church of which, on a hillock of the prehistoric
landslip that formed the lake, commands a superb
view. Climate and vegetation, language, manners
and religion, announce Italy and the South. The
road and the leaping stream descend between rocky
walls, and, passing through a narrow defile below
Brusio, issue into Italy, undiluted and unmistakable,
though we do not come across its custom-house
officers, with their charming manners and exasper-

ating routine, till a couple of miles further. I know

189

The Upper Engadine

no descent to it from Switzerland more lovely, or with
more striking changes of scene.

An interesting walk may be made from the pass
up the Val Viola to Bormio. These mountains
between the Bernina and Fuorn passes are usually
classed as a subdivision of the Bernina group, but
are a striking contrast to the rest. East and north-
east of the Bernina pass we come abruptly from
crystalline to sedimentary rock, mostly lias and trias :
from a simple and typical mountain system, a uniform
upheaval constituting a main range, with radiating
and Pennine subsidiaries, to an unsystematic con*^
geries of minor ranges, so bent and twisted from
what would seem their normal parallelism, as to
create a complex network of longitudinal and trans-
verse valleys. Added to this we leave serene expanses
of eternal snow, and pass through a museum of
ruined peaks, offering examples of every variety of
the freakish havoc of erosion. The Cima di Viola,
Cima di Lago Spalmo, Corno and Pizzo di Dosd^,
Cima di Saoseo, and others, all in a state of pro-
found disintegration, some mere heaps of fragments,
others still raising battered towers and fantastic
pinnacles above their seamed and fissured sides.

A return to Pontresina from the Bernina pass

can be made by the popular Diavolezza tour. It

takes its name from the Diavolezza combe, cut in

the eastern face of Munt Pers ; but whether the word

indicate the savage devilry of the scene, or whether

we may accept the more euphemistic etymology

190

The Diavolezza

which interprets it **God be with us," I will not
attempt to decide. The tour is also often made by a
path from the Bernina houses, past a many-hued
tarn, lapped in rocks and screes, and over the snow
on the upper slopes of the combe. I know not which
be preferable — whether, coming from the Hospice, to
pass slowly in review the great array of peaks as one
walks laterally over the snow slopes, or toiling up
from the Bernina houses, to find oneself suddenly in
face of them on passing through the narrow gateway
between Piz Trovat and Munt Pers. In either case,
we have a scene of "tranquil prfmp," in Wordsworth's
apt phrase, which the eye does not readily forget.
The accompanying sketch gives a fine appreciation
of it, with the little Inn, attractively entitled Zum
Ewigen Schnee, in the foreground. Primus inter
pares in the grand assize of mountains is the Piz
Bernina, the highest and the most beautiful mountain
in the Grisons, so pure and noble in its lines, so
perfect in its proportions, so exquisitely moulded and
chiselled, as to seem rather the deliberate masterpiece
of a supreme artist, than a casual output of the blind
forces of nature.

From the inn we descend to the glacier, and
traverse a network of rills, meandering over the great
ice-floor, or leaping into the blue depths of its
crevasses ; we thread our way among the countless
shafts and pinnacles of the Pers glacier, from which
a sketch is taken, one of the most striking and
beautiful mazes of ice-formation that I know, and

191

The Upper Engadine

rest a while on the rocks of I sola Persa. All around
we have the continuous rush of water below the ice,
every now and then long-drawn gurgles and belches,
as from the belly of some sprawling Caliban. Here,
below, nature is in travail; above, stand the serene
and shining heights, as it were, her perfected work,
which neither change nor decay should touch.
Finally, we pass over the broad white billows of the
lower Morteratsch glacier, in form, though not in
colour, like the heave of mid-ocean after a great
wind that is still, and, turning suddenly to the right,
land on the lateral moraine.

192

• 'i'
I

CHAPTER XVIII

LAS AGNAS TO PUNT OTA

It remains to speak of the dozen miles of the Upper
Engadine below Be vers.

Three-quarters of a mile down, a lonely little
tavern, Las Agnas, marks the most historic spot in
the valley. Here, on the 7th May 1462, representa-
tives of all the communes assembled and settled the
constitution and the judicial and administrative
organisation of the little political unit which federated
with others into the Free State of the Three Leagues,
and here, from time to time, they long continued to
meet in council.

In the adjoining meadow of Las Islas, all men
who could bear arms mustered in May 1499, elected
Thomas Planta as their bannerman, and marched
down to join the forces of the Three Leagues at Suoz,
and bear their part at Calven on that bloody Easter
Monday which won the independence of the land.

Las Agnas, the ewe lambs, exclaims the pleased

and simple-minded traveller. How idyllic ! and here,

in old days, freemen made their laws, and gathered

193 2 B

The Upper Engadine

to defend their freedom. Then, perhaps, his mind
runs riot in antitheses, contrasting the sweet, pastoral
name with the stern use to which the place was put ;
or, may be, seeing the gathering ranks as lambs
led to the slaughter, sheep dumb before the "accursed
fury with the abhorred shears." Rubbish, says
the heartless philologist; the word does but mean
Erlen ; it can be traced through every shade of change
to alfuiy and there, along the Inn, are alders to
clinch the etymology. Fantastic pedantry, growls
an unnatural brother. Of two men living round of
whom you shall ask the name, one will tell you
Agnas, and the other Au; in fact, the words are
identical, and, as aa-, arh-^ au-, are found throughout
Eastern Switzerland. It is the Middle High German
awa, or aAva, and means a swampy meadow. Agnas
is but a popular pun, and aina a pedantic fiction.
Who shall decide when Ph.DD. disagree? Revenons
ct nos mouions, let him cherish his ewe lambs who
will, nor allow any philological David to rob him of
them.

I have given the etymologies above as I found
them, but it appears too obvious to have escaped
notice that the Romansch ts/as and the Teutonic au
may fairly be taken as identical in meaning, and
Agnas as independent of both.

A little further, is another landmark of old
history, the intermittent spring of Fontana Merla,
Fons Merulii, the Merle's Well, which was the
boundary between the two original administrative

194

Ponte

divisions of the valley, sur e suot, above and below,
Fontana Merla, a division, it is said, of immemorial
antiquity.

We now come to Ponte, no longer of the import-
ance that it was when the Albula pass was the main
communication between the Upper Engadine and
Chur. The once busy route is now almost deserted.
It is not without regret that one passes swiftly
and in darkness under the tranquil beauty of the
Simplon or the savage disorder of the St Gothard ;
but the dreary Albula pass offers little induce-
ment to leave the train at the entrance of the tunnel
and pass over, rather than under it. The Piz
Albula, however, affords a superb view, the junction
of granite and limestone in the neighbourhood is
remarkable, and the upper region is a hom.e of many
interesting arctico-alpine plants, some of them very
rare, as carex valilii, alsine biflora, tofeldia borealis.

Ponte contains many interesting old houses, none
more so than the Steinbock inn. I trust the many
charming details of its interior have passed unharmed
through the improvements which were being put in
hand when I last saw it ; the wood- and iron-work in
a room numbered I. were alone worth a pilgrimage.

The picturesque little church passed over to
Protestantism in 1561, on the death of its priest,
in deference to whom the great question of the day
had been shelved during his lifetime. The population
seem to have been pretty equally divided between
the two persuasions, none were very keen for their

195

The Upper Engadine

views, and there was a general wish to avoid strife.
In fact, the situation was one which in small mundane
matters is wont to be decided by tossing" up. As the
nearest ecclesiastical approach to this, it was agreed
to leave the decision to the priest of Bergiin, in the
Val Albula, Christoph Chiiern. The commune asked
him to officiate on the following Sunday, leaving him
a free hand, and agreeing among themselves that
they would be Catholic or Protestant, according as
he celebrated Mass or preached a sermon. It would
be interesting to know more of the man in whom such
confidence was placed, and from whom, apparently,
either procedure might be expected. The popular
imagination appears everywhere to have taken these
services as typical of the two persuasions, and prob-
ably knew little and did not care much, about the
distinctions that divided theologians.

Chiiern preached, and the commune passed to
Protestantism, though in the spirit of neighbourly con-
cession which had characterised both sides throughout,
it was agreed that certain venerated images, whose
peculiar sanctity had a more than local repute, should
remain in the church. The austere moralist may take
the sequel as showing that peace cannot be purchased
by compromise with principle. The calm of the little
community, which theological difference had failed to
ruffle, was not proof against more sordid considerations.
As the Protestants sat, Sunday after Sunday, under the
victorious pulpit, the sight of the disrated effigies more

and more vexed their thrifty souls, as so much capital

196

Church and State

lying idle. These images might be sold for much
and given to the poor, for a brisk trade in such ware
was then being done with the pious Catholics of the
Tyrol. At length, when a speculative cornchandler
tendered a hundred gulden- worth of rye for them,
the offer seemed too good to be refused. Naturally
it revolted those whose hearts lingered in the old
ways, though, for the sake of peace, they had con-
sented to walk in the new. To maintain the images
in church except by common consent seems to have
been felt inconsistent with the agreement arrived at,
but, if they could not keep their birthright, they would
not barter it for a mess of rye. For months the com-
mune was distracted by the question, and, at length,
arrived at the singular conclusion that the objects of
contention should be burnt. The Catholics did not
keep their images, the Protestants did not get their
rye : the latter placed the once venerated forms on a
funeral pyre in Campovasto market-place, while those
who still venerated them stood round, and watched
jealously that no fragment that could be bartered for
lucre remained unconsumed. I doubt if there be a
more curious chapter in the curious controversy of
the time.

It is but just to remember that the Engadiners'
readiness for religious compromise was the result of
their strong sense of corporate life. A schism in the
body politic appeared so great an evil, that any
reciprocal concessions that could avert it should be

made. And no doubt they were wise in their genera-

197

The Upper Engadine

tion ; in those rude times no community could hope
to preserve its independence which had not at heart
St Paul's homely parable of the body and the
members ; a highly decentralised state, such as that
of the leagues, made up of communes divided against
themselves, would certainly not have weathered the
stormy days that were ahead. And others than
their descendants may be glad that it was not
submerged; the little Alpine republics stood almost
alone in their day, for the principle of self-government,
to which, in one shape or another, the civilised world
has since conformed; the fact that these peasant
communities were deciding this ecclesiastical issue
for themselves was witness to it. Shall we blame
them if they deemed that their continued existence
was a more vital matter than theological perfection ?
All around them were powerful despotisms to whom
Catholic and Protestant were but pawns in a game of
ignoble statecraft ; the one hope for the saving seed
of freedom was to keep intact, at all costs, the little
political units in which it had been evolved.

On the other side of the river is Campovasto, the
ancient Camogasc, which, I believe, is older, and was
originally more important, than Ponte. The pleasant
and sequestered Val Camogasc behind it is entered
by a narrow gorge between the Piz Musella and the
Piz Misaun, a limestone mass, metamorphosed above
into reddish marble, formerly a hill of ill repute, which
good Christian folk thought it well to shun.

The next village is Madulein, a name which is

198

Madulein

said to have no connection with Magdalene, while
the etymology which derives it from Medio-lacu is
probably little more than a pun on some far older
word, rooted in a forgotten tongue. The fact, how-
ever, that the derivation was current several centuries
ago is interesting, as suggesting that there may have
then survived some strand of tradition, stretching
back to the time when the lake, or a remnant of it,
which must once have covered this reach of the valley,
still existed.

Strongly placed above Madulein, on a steep,
rocky spur of mountain, are the ruins of Guardaval,
erected in 1251 by Bishop Conrad, "the castle
lover." It is said that no historical warrant can be
found for the legend that its destruction in the
fifteenth century was brought about by the misdeeds
of its last Castellan, but the persistence of the legend
in many forms probably shows the feeling with which
the peasantry of the time regarded these feudal
castles.

In those days, one version of the legend runs, there
ruled at Guardaval an evil man. He was there as the
Castellan of God s House in Chur, but little recked he
of the laws of God, and man's law he twisted to serve
his purpose. Men that crossed his will, and women
that pleased his fancy, disappeared, and terrible tales
were told of doings within the castle walls.

Now there dwelt on his little farm at Camogasc,

one Adam, a stern man, whose daughter, Magdalene,

was called the fairest flower of the valley. Her the

199

The Upper Engadine

Castellan saw and desired, and he sent and demanded

her of her father. ** Give the girl time," said Adam,

"to get meet bridal garb. To-morrow morning" I

myself will bring her to the castle." So the man

returned to his master.

That night Adam travelled swift and far, and bid

trusty men that he knew, to take such weapon as

they might have and gather at his house. At early

dawn they marched up to the castle with joyous

shouts and wedding songs, the trembling maiden in

their midst, her face white as her bridal robe. The

Castellan came forth to meet them and was cut down

by Adam; the peasants pressed through the gate

over his body. His retainers offered no resistance,

but set themselves to plunder, while Adam and his

friends, guided by old men who had known the castle

in better times, commenced a melancholy quest.

Then, from dark dungeon and dripping vault, there

gathered in the courtyard a strange and lamentable

crowd. There were men maimed and wasted, their

faces awry with torture; some had lost reason and

forgotten speech, and mopped and mowed at their

deliverers, or tried to slink back into the darkness.

There were women, bowed with shame, their hair

white before its time, who only asked that they

might die, and children, shambling skeletons, with

bleached faces and blinking eyes, that had never seen

God s day before. Men turned away and crossed

themselves, and cursed the mangled corpse that lay

before the gate.

200

Suoz

Through the long summer day the search went
on. Then, when it was certain that the great building
had no ghastly secret left, the costly furniture and
hangings, and all that could burn, were piled in the
courtyard, and a tall column of flame and smoke told
the folk from end to end of the valley, that the horrid
tyranny which had cast its shadow over their lives
was gone for ever.

From Madulein the road runs almost level between
green meadows ; here and there homely potato-plots,
and patches of oats and rye, give sign that the
severity of the high Alpine climate is mitigating. On
the left opens out the pleasant Val d'Eschia, carved
by the water from the glaciers which imbed the
four rocky peaks of the Kesch, that afford some
enjoyable mountaineering. Before us, seeming to
block up the valley, is Piz d'Eren, a great cone
of limestone capped with snow. A couple of miles
on, the valley widens, its sides become less precipi-
tous, the forests on them give way to meadows, so
steep above that one wonders how they can be mown,
but below, descending towards the river in a broad
slope on which white-walled, close-packed houses
cluster round a tall spire. This is Suoz.

When, at the commencement of the sixteenth

century, the villages of the Upper Engadine arose

from the ashes to which the devoted patriotism of the

inhabitants had consigned them on the approach of

the Austrian invaders, a devotion which saved the

whole Leagueland, Suoz was by common con-

201 2 c

The Upper Engadine

sent the chief among them, and all the leading
families had residences there. In later times it has
been superseded for administrative purposes by the
more central Samaden, but it still retains many traces
of its ancient primacy. Nowhere are there so many
and such fine examples of the characteristic architec-
ture of the valley. On the right, soon after entering the
village, one is struck by the interesting Chesa Gregori-
Gilli ; on its front are the Rhaetian wildman and St
George, whom we continually find associated in the
district, and who strike us as somewhat incongruous
companions till we learn that they represent a remote
ancestor of the population and their patron saint.
Inscribed beneath is

EVVIVA LA GRISCHA,

and the excellent precept which at some periods of its
history la Grischa has sadly needed,

RES PARVAE CONCORDIA CRESCIT
MAXIMAE DISCORDIA DILABUNTUR

MDLI.

In the central square is a fine house of the
Plantas ; the flight of steps in front of it has a
massive stone balustrade in rococo carving. There
is a remarkable stove in the drawing-room, elabor-
ately moulded, gilt, and coloured.

Close by is the Tuor Planta, an inscription on

which records that it was disriitta del fo, destroyed

by fire in 1499, through the patriotic self-sacrifice

202

Anna Juvalta

Engadine interiors, and many portraits of past
Juvaltas, than which there is no older nor more*
honoured name in the valley. No family has a
more pleasing tradition than that which tells how,
when the insanity of civil strife was at its highest
and the streets of Suoz were red with the blood of
its citizens, the women of the town, headed by Anna
Juvalta, threw themselves with tears and prayers
between the maddened combatants, and declared
that they should only strike one another by passing
over the bodies of their wives and daughters.

Relentless criticism has, I believe, relegated Anna
to that limbo of unaccredited immortals which every
day becomes more crowded, but I trust it will be
long ere the souls of young Engadiners cease to be
nourished on the exploded legends of their country.
It matters little that they be not history. There
are legends that are truer than history, in that they
embody the spirit without which the external facts
of history would not have been. William Tell may
not have shot his arrow at Altorf, nor Anna Juvalta
stood between the armed ranks at Suoz, but, had
there not been many men and women of the temper
of Tell and Anna, the Forest Cantons would still be
ruled by strangers, and Rhaetian independence
would, long ago, have foundered in anarchy and
bloodshed.

Scanfs is charmingly situated for rambles both

short and long, and there are pleasant walks from it

over the Sertig and Scaletta passes to Davos, or

205 2 c 2

The Upper Engadine

over the Casanna to Livigno. In the two last we
are on historic ground. By the Scaletta in 162 1 the
able and ruthless Baldiron led the Austrian army in
that merciless campaign which seemed to stamp out
the last flicker of national life in the Leagueland.
By the Casanna, the army sent by Maximilian in
1500 to take possession of the Upper Engadine, as
a base for the subjugation of the whole Leagueland,
marched to its disastrous fate. In 1620, 6cxx>
leaguers streamed over it, without plan, organisation,
or leading, moved only by passionate indignation at
the treacherous massacre of their fellow-religionists
in the Valtelline. The Austrian troops easily over-
powered and drove them back, and the ill-considered
expedition was taken as a declaration of war and
followed by pitiless reprisals. Very different was the
next Protestant army that crossed it in 1635, led by
the great Huguenot, De Rohan, who, passing over
with characteristic swiftness, fell like a thunderbolt on
the unsuspecting Austrians and Spaniards at Livigno,
and by a succession of rapid blows, completely reversed
what had appeared an irrevocable conquest. In
striking contrast to these "old unhappy far-off
things," is the pastoral peace and sweet mountain
quietude of the route to-day, when Rhaetian and
Italian herdsmen meet on it as the best of neigh-
bours.

Two miles below Scanfs is the hamlet of Capella,
so called from the chapel of San Guerg, of which

but a fragment remains. Near it formerly stood an

206

Capella

enormous pine-tree, sacred to St George, the patron
of the Upper Engadine, which, with the picture of the
saint in the chapel, was an object of profound venera-
tion throughout the valley. On St George's Day
and on two other days in the year, processions from
far and wide came with crucifix and banner for
service under its branches. The aged tree was
felled when Scanfs passed over to the Reformation,
and this was possibly the only way to eradicate
customs and superstitions that were anything but
Christian in their source. Its fall was perhaps a
greater wrench with the past than any thesis or con-
fession of faith. What memories of old rites, what
ghosts of forgotten creeds, may have haunted the
shade of its sombre foliage. That its sacred char-
acter was originally connected with St George, is
most unlikely. It was more probably a hoary relic of
a faith and worship to which St George was as of
yesterday, and which primitive Christianity recog-
nised as too deeply rooted in the popular imagination
to be lightly discarded. There was a large humanity
about those early missionaries, a disposition to count
nothing human common or unclean, that went for
much in their success. They did not deem that
all was wasted which had gone before, but rather
that

the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touched God's right hand in the darkness.
And were lifted up and strengthened ;

207

The Upper Engadine

and they would not rudely sweep away props on
which men's souls had leaned, but left them, to stand
while they might, consecrated to a new significance.
Some better thing might be reserved for the succeed-
ing time, but without them it was not to be made
perfect.

Soon after this the road crosses the Sulsanna,
coming from its cascaded valley, and the changing
character of the scenery ahead reminds us that we
are nearing the end of the upper section of the valley
of the Inn.

The division of the Engadine into Upper and
Lower is not a piece of arbitrary map-making, nor
the device of officials beset by the necessity of
drawing a line somewhere. We seem to pass into a
new country when, leaving the broad upper valley,
lying wide-stretched to the sky, where only human
care prevents the Inn from spreading out into lakes
and marshes, we enter the deep trough, bordered by
picturesque peaks and ridges, where the river which
has so long been the companion of the road flows
far below it between steep walls of rock. And not
only does the scenery change, but the climate, the
flora, the very dialect of the people, and their character
in history, is different.

A mile beyond Capella, in a green basin below the
road, is Cinuskel, the last hamlet ; a few picturesque
houses, one of them quaintly frescoed, with a trim,
demure little church. The valley narrows to a
ravine ; the Inn whitens to a torrent, as it rages down

208

Punt Ota

the pine-clad gorge that it has cut for itself; two
bridges, one in stone upon the present road, the other
the historic wooden Punt Ota on the grass-grown
road above, span the foaming yellow brook which is
the immemorial boundary of the Upper Engadine.

209

INDEX

Adam, of Camosgasc, 199
Agnas, Las, 193
Aguagliouls, 181
Albula Pass, 195
Alpina, Upper, 94
Alv, Lej, 186

Pir, 185
Architecture, 41-44, 51, 52, 59, 67-

70, 96, 121-125, 140, 171, 172
Arolla, 163, 187

Bernina Falls, 185

Pass, 188

Piz, 191

Val, 185
Bevers, 40-45

Val, 45-47
Bishopric of Chur, 3-6, 21, 93, 108
Bitabergo, Lago di, 147
Blaunca, 137
Botany, 157-165
Bregaglia, Val, 149

CADi:, 6

Calven, 11, 12-16
Camogasc, Val, 178, 198
Campells, 61
Campfer, 106, 108
Campovasto, 198
Capaul, Hercules, 14
Capella, 206
Capolago, 139
Capuchins, 27
Casanna Pass, 16, 206
Cavloccio, Lago di, 145
Celerina, 56-60
Chamadura gorge, 65-67
Chaste, 133
Chastlatsch, 64
Chesa Badrutt, 127

Chesa Gregori-Gilli, 202

Juvalta, 204

Planta, 50, 202

de Poult, 203

de Salis, 44
Chiavenna, 150
Chiiem, Christoph, 196
Chunetta, 183
Cinuskel, 208
Colani, 181
Constitution, 34
Corvatsch glacier, 98
Crap da Chuern, 137
Cresta, 62
Crestalta, 96

DiAVOLEZZA, 190

Electricity, iio
Eschia, Val, 201

Fain, Val del, 177, 186

Fex, Val, 130

Fishing, 92-94, 106, 133, 187

Fla2,57

Fontana Merla, 194

Fomo, 146

Fuorcla da Fex-Rosegg, 133

Muraigl, 178

Surlej, 97, 117, 182
Fuom Pass, 12, 16

GlAN, San, 63
Golf; 58, ni, 140
Gra vasal vas, 137
Griim, Alp, 189
Guardaval, 199

Hahnensee, 95
Hartmann, 69, 81, 124
Heimathschutz, 69

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