The junction of the rivers is well seen from the castle garden. The more abundant waters of the Hinter Rhein coming from the Bernardin and the foot of Mount Adula, are of dirty blue; while those of the Vorder Rhein, rising in the glaciers of the Crispalt and Lukmanier, are observed to be of a grey tint. The road up the Vorder Rhein to its source, and to Andermatt, on the St. Gothard, is described in Route 77. The road to the Splügen follows the course of the Hinter-Rhein. On the rt. of it, as you ascend the hill beyond Reichenau, the Gallows may be seen standing in a field. A little further, on the top of a commanding rock on the 1. bank of the Rhine, and approached by a long bridge, rises the Castle of Rhoetzuns (Rhotia ima): it is still inhabited. This part of the Rheinthal, called the valley of Domleschg (Vallis Domestica), is particularly remarkable for the vast number of castles (21) which crown almost every rock or knoll on either side of the river, mostly in ruins, sometimes standing out boldly from a dark background of forest, at others so identified by decay, by the weather tints, and by the lichen growth, with the apparently inaccessible rocks on which they stand, as barely to be distinguished. Their picturesque donjons and battlements contribute not a little to enhance the charms of the landscape; they serve at the same time as historical monuments to commemorate the revolution by which the power of a tyrannical feudal aristocracy, the lords of these fastnesses, was broken, and their strongholds burnt by the peasants of this valley, whom they had long oppressed. Another peculiarity of this district is the intricate intermixture of language and religion. There are scarcely two adjoining parishes, or even hamlets, speaking the same tongue and professing the same faith. Thus at Coire German is the prevail 221 ing language, and Protestant the religion of the majority; at Ems, the first village on the road, Romansch (p. 189.) is spoken, Tamins and Reichenau are Catholic and German; Bonaduz, divided from them only by the Rhine, is Reformed, and speaks Romansch. Rhætzuns and Katzis are two Romish villages; but in the first the language is German, in the second Romansch. The inhabitants of Heinzenberg are Protestant and German; at Thusis they are Reformed and German; at Zillis and Schams Reformed and Romansch. Splügen and Hinter Rhein form the boundary at once of the Romansch language and Protestant religion. The castle of Ortenstein, on the rt. bank of the Rhine, is one of the finest and best preserved in the valley: it is still inhabited by the Travers family. Near the village of Kätzis a beautiful view opens out, on the opposite side of the Rhine, up the valley of Oberhalbstein, with the snows of Mount Albula (Route 83.) at the termination of the vista. The river Albula enters the Rhine between Kätzis and Thusis. This part of the Rhine valley exhibits dismal traces of the ravages produced by the torrent Nolla, which, rising at the base of the Piz Beveren, on the W. of our route, joins the Rhine nearly at right angles to the direction of the course of that river. It is subject to very sudden swells after rain, when it rushes down, tearing up the rocks and carrying along with it heaps of stone, mud, and gravel, which not only overspread its own banks, but frequently block up the bed of the Rhine and cause desolating inundations. Thus a district, previously fertile and beautiful, has been in the course of a few years (since 1807) transformed into a desert, and its fields either buried under stony rubbish or converted into marsh. The evil has been annually increasing for several years past, but hopes are entertained of arresting it and re 222 Route 87. Coire to Splügen covering the land. With this view, extensive dykes are being constructed along the banks of the Rhine. 13 Thusis-(Inn: Post, tolerable; Aigle d'Or,- -a village of 670 inhabitants, finely situated on a terrace under the Heinzenberg. Thusis, according to some, is only the word Tuscia, the country of the Tuscans, who first colonised these valleys, changed in the Romansch dialect. Immediately on the outside of Thusis the Nolla is crossed by a handsome bridge. On the rt., at the end of the valley, appears the peak of the Piz Beveren. By crossing the Rhine at Thusis and taking a char road up the valley of the Albula, which is very pretty, Tiefenkasten (Route 83.) may be reached after an interesting walk of 5 hours. Above Thusis the valley of the Rhine seems closed up by the mountains; it is only on a nearer approach that the eye discovers the opening of that singular chasm which has cleft them through, affording a passage for the river, and in modern times, by artificial means, for the road. The rt. side of this colossal portal is guarded by the castle of Realt (Rhotia Alta), standing in the fork between the Albula and the Rhine, and from its lofty platform, 400 ft. high, looking down upon both valleys. It is accessible only from the east: on all other sides the rock is a precipice. These mouldering ruins are traditionally reported to owe their origin to Rhœtus, chief of the Etruscans, who driven out of Italy by an invasion of the Gauls, established his stronghold on this spot B. c. 287, and transplanted into the Alps the people and language of Etruria. The ruined chapel of St. John, on a neighbouring height is stated to have been the earliest, and for a long time the only Christian temple in the valley, where heathenism prevailed to a comparatively late period. The VIA MALA, which commences about a mile above Thusis, and ex tends for a distance of more than 4 miles is, perhaps, the most sublime and tremendous defile in Switzerland. It is difficult to give, with any precision the dimensions of this gorge, which has cleft the mountains through the chine. The precipices, which often rise perpendicularly on both sides of it, are certainly in some places 1600 ft. high, and in many places, not more than 10 yards apart. The Rhine, compressed within this narrow stony bed, to the width of a pigmy rivulet, is barely audible as it rushes through the depths below the road. The rocks of slate and limestone, composing the walls of the ravine, are so hard that they appear to have suffered no disintegration from the weather; the fracture is so fresh and sharp that, were the convulsive force from below, which divided them, again called forth to unite them, it seems as though the gulf would close, and leave no aperture behind. The When the traveller enters the mouth of the defile, the sudden transition from the glare of sunshine to the gloom of a chasm, so narrow that it leaves but a strip of sky visible overhead, is exceedingly striking. walls of rock, on both sides, afford naturally not an inch of space along which a goat's foot could clamber; and, in ancient times, this part of the pass was deemed quite inac cessible. The peasants gave it the name of the Lost Gulf (Trou perdu, Verlohrenes Loch); and, when they wanted to go from Thusis to the higher valley of Schams, they ascended the vale of the Nolla for some distance, clambering over the tops of high mountains, round the shoulder of the Piz Beveren, and descended on the opposite side at Suvers. A second road formed in 1470, crossed the mountains as before, but dipped down, from the village of Rongella, into the depths of the Via Mala, near the first bridge; still avoiding altogether the Trou perdu. This inconvenient path, 'after being used for more than 300 years, was superseded by the present magnificent highway constructed by the engineer Pocobelli. Avoiding the useless detour, and the fatiguing ascent and descent, he at once plunged into the defile, and pierced the projecting buttress of rock, which had previously denied all access to it, by the gallery or tunnel of the Verlohrenes Loch, 216 ft. long, through which the road now passes. The view, looking back from this, through the dark vista of black rock, and the fringe of firs, upon the ruined tower of Realt, and the sun-lit valley of Domleschg, is very pleasing. The grooves of the boring-rod, by which the very hard slate rock is everywhere streaked, indicate how arduous was the labour of constructing this part of the road. It was literally forcing a passage through the bowels of the earth; and the whole width of the carriage way has been gained by blasting a notch, as it were, in the side of the mountain. For more than 1000 ft. it is carried along beneath a stone canopy, thus artificially hollowed out. The road is protected by a parapet wall, below which, at a depth of many hundred feet, the contracted Rhine frets the foot of the precipice. The road is in places steep, and fit for only one carriage to pass. A little higher up, the gorge bulges out into a sort of basin, in the midst of which stands a solitary house; but it soon contracts again, and the scenery of the pass may be said to attain the height of grandeur beyond the first of the three bridges, by means of which the road is conveyed from side to side of the Rhine. This portion of the pass at least, should be traversed on foot; the traveller, hurrying through in his carriage, is quite incapable of appreciating its awful magnificence. The Middle Bridge, a most striking object, from its graceful proportions, and the boldness with which its light arch spans the dark and deep gulf below, is approached by a second small gallery, protected by a wooden roof to ward off falling stones. Hereabouts, the lofty precipices on the one side actually overhang those on the other, the direction of the chasm being oblique, and the smooth wall of rock on either side being nearly parallel, and scarcely wider apart above than below. Looking over the parapet of this bridge, the Rhine reduced to a thread of water, is barely visible, boiling and foaming in the depths below. Indeed, in one place, it is entirely lost to view — jammed in, as it were, between the rocks, here so slightly separated, that small stones and trunks of fir-trees, falling from above, have been caught in the chink, and remain suspended above the water. The ordinary height of the bridge above the river is 400 ft.; and the water, as mentioned above, is in one place invisible at ordinary times, yet, at the commencement of the fearful inundation of 1834 (already alluded to in several routes), the postmaster of Thusis, who drove up the Via Mala during the storm, found that the water had risen to within a few feet of the bridge; the roar was terrific; and, as he drew up a little further on, in consequence of the road being destroyed, two mangled human bodies were swept past him by the flood. Near The road, again, is no more than a shelf hewn out of the face of the precipice overhung by the rock, so as to be almost a subterranean passage, and the width of the defile is, in places, not more than 24 ft. the third, or upper bridge, however, a fine new structure-built to replace the one swept off in 1834-it widens out, and the road emerges into the open valley of Schams (Sexamniensis, from six brooks, which fall into the Rhine from its sides), whose green meadows and neat white cottages have a pleasing effect when contrasted with the gloomy scene 224 Route 87.- Coire to Splügen · Andeer. behind. It has, however, suffered much from the inundation of 1834, which converted the valley into a lake, destroyed a great part of the road, and rendered a new line necessary. The first village is Zillis; between it and Andeer, a stone, bearing the following inscription, was set up, by the road-side, on a bridge, after the completion of the great highways over the Splügen and Bernardine : "Jam via patet hostibus et amicis. Cavete, Rhæti! Simplicitas morum et Unio servabunt avitam libertatem." 1 Andeer-Inn: Post; very good and cheap-bed, tea, and breakfast, cost 1 fr. each. It contains mineral baths, but they are not much used. This is the chief village in Schams, and has 400 inhabitants, who like their neighbours, are Protestants, and speak Romansch (p. 189.). Over the doors of many of the cottages, quaint verses and mottoes in that language are inscribed. Above Andeer a very large landslip or bergfall occurred in 1835, by the giving way of a mountain, which buried the road, and, for 16 days, cut off all communication up and down the valley. Luckily it happened in the night, so that no one was hurt. The ruined castles, visible in the valley of Schams, have an historical interest, from being monuments of the dawn of Grison liberty. In the last half of the fourteenth century, they served as the residences of bailiffs, zwingherrn, or landvoghts, dependents of the Counts of Vatz or of the Bishop of Coire, petty tyrants and oppressors of the poor- - akin in character to Gessler, the victim of Tell's vengeance. At length a peasant, of the Schamser Thal, named Jean Chaldar, exasperated at the sight of two horses which the chatelain of Fardun had turned out to graze in his field of green corn, gave vent to his anger by killing the animals. He suffered punishment for this act by being long detained pri As soon as the road has crossed the mouth of the Val Ferrera and the stream of the Aversa, it begins to mount in zigzags into the gorge of the Rofla, which closes up the S. end of the oval vale of Schams, as the Via Mala does the N. Its scenery, though fine, is vastly inferior to the lower pass. The Rhine here descends in a cataract, called the fall of the Rofla. It does not rank as a firstrate waterfall, but the scenery around is picturesque — the sides of the valley being thickly wooded, and the river studded by saw-mills, where the timber of the neighbouring forests is sawn into planks. A timber-slide, similar to that of Alpnach (Route 19.), was constructed to convey the trees to the borders of the Rhine. The oldest mule-path, which traverses this valley to Coire, crossed the river by a wooden bridge, still standing, to Suvers, where it began painfully to ascend the mountains, Route 87. Splügen. 88. Pass of the Splügen. and proceeded along the high ground to descend again at Thusis. The new road leaves the bridge on one side, traverses a small gallery cut in the rock, then crosses to the 1. bank of the Rhine, and soon reaches sea. 1 Splügen (Ital. Spluga) — Inn : Post; also called Bodenhaus; one of the best inns in Switzerland. This little village is situated on the Rhine, at the point of departure of the two Alpine passes of the Splügen and Bernardin, at a height of 4711 ft. above the It suffered most severely from the flood of 1834, which swept away more than a dozen houses, in some of which the owners had been seated at their evening meal not an hour before. Five human beings perished by this catastrophe, the effects of which were still painfully visible in 1837. The covered bridge over the Rhine escaped almost by a miracle; that over the Serända was soon annihilated. Splügen is the chief place in the desolate pastoral vale of the Rheinwald, and anciently belonged to the lords of Sax, in the vale of Misocco, on the S. slope of the Bernardine, but it afterwards joined the Grey League. The atmosphere is very chilly here, and barley barely ripens. The village prospers by the constant passage of goods and travellers to and from Italy. In autumn it is thronged with drovers; large herds of cattle and many horses, then cross the Alps for the Milan market. An excursion, which lies within the compass of a day returning to sleep the inn at Hinterrhein being wretched-may be made from Splügen to the Source of the Hinter-Rhein. It will occupy 5 hours going; 2 along the post road, 2 on horseback, and 1 on foot it is described in Route 90. p. 231. Strassburg may be reached in 36 hours from Splügen, going by steam across the lakes of Wallenstadt and Zurich. ROUTE 88 225 PASS OF THE SPLUGEN, FROM SPLUGEN TO CHIAVENNA AND THE LAKE OF COMO. To Colico 5 posts =44 English miles. A diligence goes 5 times a week over the Splügen to Milan. With post-horses it takes 7 hours to go from Splügen to Chiavenna, including stoppages. N. B. Without an Austrian minister's signature on the passport, the frontier cannot be passed; and the traveller unprovided with it, will inevitably be turned back on the summit of the mountain. A toll of 15 batz is paid for 2 horses, between Splügen and the Austrian frontier. The Splügen road, turning to the 1. from the village of that name (p. 224.) crosses the narrow wooden bridge over the Rhine, and quitting the river, begins at once to ascend. It is carried up the valley of the Oberhausen-bach, a small torrent which joins the Rhine at Splügen, by an entirely new line, the old one having been demolished by the disastrous tempest of 1834. Indeed, this little valley presents one sweep of desolation; road and bridges having been entirely carried away, and enormous piles of broken rocks spread over its sides and bottom. The new line, however, on this side of the mountain, constructed by a Swiss engineer, employed by the canton of the Grisons, is, in every respect, a great improvement upon the old one. A little way above Splügen it is carried through a tunnel, 262 feet long, supported by a Gothic arch. After surmounting the district of fir forests by an almost uninterrupted slope, the road reaches the summit of the pass, 6814 ft. above the sea, by means of 16 skilfully conducted zigzags, by which the face of the |