that bank we advanced to a spot, where a second time the engineer was baffled by the precipice. He was now working a narrow ledge on the face of a perpendicular wall of rock, rising at least 1,400 feet above the torrent, and here actually curving over his head.

Again he must span the ravine to reach the left bank; and though the cliffs cleft by the torrent rise at this place 400 feet above its bed, they were so slightly parted, that a single arch, about thirty feet in length, could unite them. To form the scaffolding

by which the workmen might execute this work, pines were firmly lashed together with - ropes, and swung across the gulf; and on this frail bridge, rocked possibly by the gust of the tempest, with the black abyss beneath them, they constructed that arch, which still stands a monument of human skill and courage. This point is the most magnificent of

the whole ascent: all around, above, beneath, is dark, wild, and savage. The river is far down in the depth below; the brows of encircling precipices are far up in the skies overhead. To that river no foot has ever descended; to those shaggy brows no hunter has ever climbed. Farther up the ravine, you may see the rocky walls close over the torrent, which there rolls and rages in darkness, like the Tamina at Pfeffers. But who has searched these caverns? I felt insatiate of the scene, and while admitting the truth

of the Horatian maxim, "Nil admirari sapientis est," felt no disposition to freeze up my wonder and delight into stoicism. But to drive through this via optima, which should no longer be called the Via Mala, is not to see it. He who would know it aright, ought to traverse it in storm as well as in sunshine. He ought to see the black vapours boiling up from its depths; he ought to listen when its crags answer the artillery of the thunder

LAKE OF THE OBER-ALP.

cloud; he ought to shudder on the margin of its precipices, and explore its darkest depths; he ought to muse among its blasted pines, or lie down on one of its slopes, when the summer sun in the meridian extorts from its rugged features a reluctant smile. He ought to stand there all alone, till the wild music of its torrent and its forests might fall upon his listening ear, and till its sublime solitude might enter his very soul. How much is there still to learn about it? How looks the strange avenue from below, when the mid-day sun for one quarter of an hour throws its flame upon the restless waters? Is there no rent in these cliffs, by which a natural staircase leads to the very margin of the river? Are there no means by which you can enter these long and lofty caverns, compared with which the vault of Pfeffers is a toy? A bold and prudent traveller, who, with good guides, should explore these torture-chambers, where the imprisoned and tormented river writhes, and curls, and groans in subterranean darkness, might weave a stirring narrative, worthy to be placed side by side with the story of an ascent to Mont Blanc, or of a walk over the ice-plains of the Oberland. At present no living thing goes down to that darkness, except, perhaps, some colony of bats, who live nestled in the hollows of the precipice. Nor are these quite safe: for in 1834, after heavy rains, the postmaster of Thusis visited the middle bridge, when the torrent, which is usually seen four hundred feet beneath the centre of the bridge, had swollen in its rage, and, breaking over its prison walls, was furiously foaming within a few feet of the arch-a magnificent spectacle to the postmaster, but awkward to the bats. Some day, perchance, if the memory of that flood forbid it not, a scaffolding of planks, like that at Pfeffers, carried along the cliffs, will throw open, even to the timid, the whole extent of that wonderful avenue, along which the tormented river now howls and groans. What traveller would not willingly pay his fee to secure such a walk? About two miles more of gradual ascent brought us to a third bridge over the river, close to Zillis, where the pass opens on the tamer scenery of the valley of Schams. Here we descended to the level of the pure stream, whose waters do not at that point, like other Alpine streams, betray its glacial origin by being turbid. The Hinter Rhein rises in the Rheinwald Glacier, at the foot of the Piz Val Rhein or Vogelberg, a mountain marked in Keller's large map as 10,280 feet in height. Here it is fed by many streamlets, in a region of savage grandeur, and then, passing in its course the lofty village of Splugen, enters the valley of Schams; and then, being recruited by the waters of the Aversa torrent, which descends from the Val Ferrera, it begins its descent into the Via Mala, at the bridge a little below Zillis. Hitherto it has flowed joyously on in sunshine; but at this point the lofty Piz Beverin, and the mountains of the Ober Halbstein, stand like resolute brigands in the way of the light-hearted traveller, determined to bar all farther progress. But it would go on. Gallantly it struggled with these hostile masses: it has worn them down; it has cleft them asunder, and worked its channel deeper and deeper into the solid cliff. Here it has wrought a chasm which, though it seems bottomless, is yet so narrow, that an active hunter might leap across it: there it has excavated for itself a subterranean passage, whence it is still struggling to escape. Look there; beneath that middle bridge it is imprisoned on every side by precipices of 1500 feet. Can it ever emerge? Follow it, and sec. A little farther down the glen it has rolled into a channel less obscure, where the sunshine is again on its waters; and there you may see the foam of its agony subsiding into clear green depths, where for a moment it seems to rest, that it may gather strength for the conflict, and then again bounds on to accomplish its destiny. Again it is buried beneath the closing rocks, which seem to forbid all passage; but after a few more struggles, you may see it once more flashing far down, as you look between the stems of the gigantic pines which cling to the rocks near the issue of the glen, and advancing rapidly to its final triumphs. How many a noble spirit, in like manner, has in youth struggled with unimaginable difficulties, in friendless obscurity; but, resolute in duty, and gathering courage from

every conflict, has fought his way to distinction, and eventually blessed mankind with his calm wisdom and extensive beneficence!"

Following the course of the Vorder Rhein, we reach the beautifully situated village of Trons, memorable in the history of the Grisons, at which we shall glance in the succeeding chapter. Here are the remains of the maple-tree beneath which the deputies of the peasants met the nobles in the year 1424. "Close to the tree," says Murray, who calls it a sycamore, "stands the little chapel of St. Anne, whose portico is adorned with the mottos, In libertatem vocati estis;' Ubi Spiritus Domini, ibi Libertas;' In te speraverunt Patres;' and with two fresco paintings. One represents the first formation of the Grey League, the principal figure being the abbot of Dissentis, in the robes of his order; the count of Sax, with a white flowing beard; and the lord of Rhaetzuns. The other picture shows the renewal of the oath in 1778; the deputies here appear with starched frills, and hair powdered and frizzled; in silk stockings and walking-sticks. It is recorded that the deputies, on the former occasion, brought their dinners in sacks on their backs, which they hung up by nails to the rocks, while they quenched their thirst in the brook which traverses the meadow of Tavanosa. The more courtier-like deputies of the second meeting were more sumptuously feasted in. the mansion of the abbot."

Pursuing the same course, Dissentis is reached, where there is a Benedictine abbey, and beyond this is the village of Sedrun. The ascent of the Ober-alp may now be made; and on reaching the opposite declivity, there is is a small lake, bearing the name of the Ober-alp-see, one of the head-waters of the river Reuss. Passing with needed caution over the bogs of this part, the traveller proceeds by the valley of Urseren to Andermatt, on the St. Gothard.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE CANTON OF THE GRISONS-COIRE-MEYENFELD-COUNTRY OF DAVOS-COL FLUELLA,

THE canton of the Grisons, as it is called in French, or Graubündten, to give its other name, is bounded on the north by the canton of St. Gall, on the east by the Tyrol and Vorarlberg, on the south by the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, and on the west by the cantons of Ticino, Uri, and Glarus. It is entirely surrounded by lofty mountains, with the exception of one point on the north, where the Rhine issues out of it through a narrow valley, along which runs the carriage-road from Coire to St. Gall and Zurich.

A large offset of the Lepontian Alps detaches itself from the group of the St. Gothard, and, running in a north-easterly direction, marks the western boundary of the canton. Dividing the waters of the Rhine from those of the Reuss and the Linth, it forms many high summits, covered with perpetual snow. Another lofty range, which, under the name of the Rhætian Alps, forms part of the great central chain, runs east from the St. Gothard, dividing the waters which flow northwards into the Rhine from those which flow southwards into the Ticino; the high summits called Piz Val Rhein are in this range, over which pass the roads of the Bernhardina and the Splugen, leading from the Grisons into Italy. The area of the canton is reckoned at 3,080 square miles, its greatest length being about eighty miles from east to west, and its greatest breadth about fiftyfive from north to south. The surface is cut into numerous valleys, about sixty in number. No less than two hundred and forty-one glaciers are reckoned within the limits of the Grisons, one hundred and fifty of which send their waters to the Rhine, sixty-six to the Danube by means of the Inn, and twenty-five to the Po, by the Adda and the Ticino.

In the fifteenth century, the highlands of Rhætia, with their sixty valleys, where the Rhine and the Inn have their sources, a wild secluded region, surrounded and intersected on all sides by the highest Alps, the house of Hapsburg, or of Austria, had no pretensions over the country. Its numerous nobles had become independent, holding directly of the empire; indeed, the bishop of Coire, who had great possessions in the country, was a prince of the empire. A century had now elapsed since the Swiss cantons had achieved their independence, and their neighbours of the Rhætian valleys still groaned under the oppressions of their petty lords, far more overbearing and capricious than the Austrian rulers had been in Helvetia. Perched up in their castles, built on lofty cliffs, they sallied thence like birds of prey, scaring the poor shepherds and cultivators below, and extorting from them the produce of the soil, insulting the chastity of their daughters, and disposing of the lives and liberty of their sons.

The chronicles of Rhaetia record many instances of rapacity and barbarity perpetrated in these remote valleys, which have never been surpassed in the most corrupt countries and by the most depraved tyrants. We read of a baron of Vatz who used to starve his prisoners in his dungeons, and listen with complacency to their moans from his banqueting hall; and who, to try an experiment on digestion, had three of his servants ripped open some hours after dinner. In another place, we find the chatelain of Guar