cend at this point almost perpendicularly into the water. "It is surrounded by meadows of the most verdant green, covered until the end of autumn with flowers. The precipitous tracks along the side of the valley, along which some adventurous French pushed forward in pursuit of the Russians, are pointed out. Ebel deservedly calls the Klönthal "'une des vallées les plus gracieuses qu'il y ait dans les Alpes." Two Swiss have inscribed on a rock at the foot of the Glärnisch, by the side of a waterfall, an epitaph in memory of Salomon Gessner, the pastoral poet, author of the Death of Abel, who used to repair hither from Zurich, and spend the summer in a chalet. This spot is about 8 miles from Glarus. After passing through Riedern the traveller soon reaches the high road, and turning to the rt. ascends the Linththal about a mile to

4 Glarus, in Route 72.

ROUTE 76.

GLARUS TO COIRE, UP THE SERNFT THAL.

13 1/4 stunden-43 1/2 Eng. miles. A char-road as far as Elm; beyond that a footpath, difficult and fatiguing.

About 3 miles above Glarus the valley of the Linth divides into two branches. Out of the 1. or E. branch issues the Sernft it is sometimes called Kleinthal, to distinguish it from the larger W. branch, or Linththal.

At Enghi, the first village, there is no inn. Matt, another village, stands on the rt. bank of the Sernft and at the mouth of the minor vale of the Krauchthal, up which runs a path to Sargans, over the Reiseten pass, 7 stunden.

The quarries in the Plattenberg, a mountain of grauwacke and clay-slate on the 1. side of the valley, opposite Matt, furnish excellent slates for roofing or for writing. Most of the schools in Switzerland are supplied from hence; and the slate was formerly exported down the Rhine to Holland and the Indies. This slate is well known to geologists for the beautiful and perfect casts of fossil fish in which it abounds. The lower portion of the valley is unhealthy, as may be learned from the occurrence of goître and cretinism (those afflicted with the latter are here called Tölpel, § 19); but the inhabitants of the upper extremity are a fine and hardy

race.

4 1/2 Elm (where the inn is better than lower down) is the highest village in the valley.

There is a way from Elm to the Baths of Pfeffers—a fatiguing walk of 13 hours. The path ascends the Unter-thal, crosses the ridge of the Ramin into the Weistannen Thal.

1

There is a tolerable path as far as a chalet on the E. slope of the pass; beyond this there is scarcely any trace of one, and the passage is not practicable for mules. From this chalet you turn to the S. of E., and cross 2 ravines into the Kalfeuser Thal, a mile or two below the source of the Tamina, which rises at the head of that valley, in the glacier of Sardona. The scenery of the Gorge of the Tamina is magnificently grand. The Kalfeuser Thal terminates at Vättis, at the foot of the Calanda-berg, where the river suddenly alters its course, and bends to the N. There is no village where refreshment or accommodation can be obtained between Elm and Vättis.

At Elm the valley of the Sernft divides again, and minor paths ramify hence-1. Up to the head of the valley and over the pass of Panix, called in the language of the Grisons al quolm de Pejnu. I.; 2. The pass of the Segnes, which we propose to follow. Near the Tschingel is the Martinsloch, a singular hole or gap in the precipice, through which the sun shines 2 or 3 times in the year upon the village of Elm.

Suwarrow, after the almost incredible march detailed in the preceding route, remained like a stag at bay for 3 or 4 days at Glarus for the purpose of resting his wearied troops, though not a day was passed without skirmishes more or less severe with the enemy. At length, finding it hopeless to attack a French force now so greatly superior in numbers to his own, he adopted the tremendous, but only remaining, alternative of again leading his exhausted and diminished followers over the highest crest of the Alps, in order to rescue them from annihilation and enable him to unite himself with the scattered fragments of the Russian army in the Grisons. He broke up from his quarters on the 5th of October. The lateness of the season, the difficulties of the passage, and the vastly superior force pressing on the heels of his dispirited soldiers, rendered this a far more hazardous enterprise than that which he had previously accomplished. The miserable path up the valley would barely admit 2 men abreast: along this the army painfully wound its way in single file. The difficulty of the ascent was greatly increased by a fall of snow 2 ft. deep; but, as though the hardships of the way were not enough, the indefatigable French, ascending the opposite bank of the Sernft, allowed the Russians no respite from their harassing assaults. Numbers lay down, exhausted from fatigue, to perish on the snow; many, slipping down the insecure fragments of slate, and along the rocks, polished by the frost, were hurled over the precipices and crushed in the abyss below, while the enemy's bullets were not slow in further thinning their ranks. After 5 days of toil and 4 nights of little repose, since they were spent on the bare surface of the snow and the glaciers, where many men were

frozen to death, Suwarrow crossed the ridge of Panix, between 7000 and 8000 ft. above the sea, and on the 10th of October reached the valley of the Rhine at Ilanz. Even on reaching the descent into the Grisons many perished in attempting to cross the fearful chasm of the Araschka Alp. For months and months the foul birds and beasts of prey were gorged with their bodies, and the bones of many a warrior are still blanching in the crevices and ravines of the Jätzer. Thus terminated a march of 18 days' duration, perhaps the most extraordinary ever performed by an army incessantly engaged, fighting a battle almost every day, and obliged to traverse a country totally unknown and completely destitute of resources. This remarkable retreat was accomplished with the loss of all his artillery, the greater part of the beasts of burden, and 1/3 of his men.

The Segnes pass, the best way from Glarus to Coire, ascends a minor valley running in a S. E. direction behind the village of Elm. The height of the pass above the sea is 7500 ft. It is about 15 1/2 miles from this to the first village in the Grisons valley of Segnes.

4 3/4 Flims

11/4 Trins

described in Route 77.

2 3/4 COIRE, in Route 67.

Glarus to Coire up Wesen 14 st.-up Gungels 13 1/2 st.

ROUTE 77.

COIRE TO ANDERMATT ON THE ST. GOTTHARD, UP THE VALLEY OF THE VORDER RHEIN, TO DISSENTIS, AND ACROSS THE OBERALP.

20 stunden-65 1/2 English miles.

The great post-road from Coire (Route 67), up the valley of the Rhine, is followed as far as

1 3/4 Reichenau (described in Route 87), where the waters of the Vorder and Hinter-Rhein unite. Thenceforward a cart-road, of the very worst kind, is the only mode of communication up the valley of the Vorder-Rhein, and will be, most probably, for some time to come, though a new carriage-road to Dissentis is promised in 3 years. The want of roads and of inns, the pothouses which supply their place being of the most inferior kind, has hitherto prevented this beautiful district being visited by travellers as much as it deserves. Quitting the highway, our cart-track strikes up the side of the hills on the I. bank of the Rhine, to the village of Tamins, directly over Reichenau. For some distance the traveller enjoys a beautiful view up both valleys of the Rhine. The entrance of that of Hinter-Rhein, up which runs the

road to the Splügen, is guarded by the castle of Rhætzuns, backed by villages and church-towers without number. Beyond Trins the road turns aside from the Rhine, and bends round a little monticule rising in the midst of the valley into a small sequestered basin, in the midst of which lies

2 3/4 Flims, a village 3360 ft. above the sea, named from the number of sources around it ad flumina. Here the path to Glarus, by the Segnes Pass (Route 76), strikes off. After continuing some time out of sight of the Rhine, we join it again, after a steep descent, about 3 miles beyond Lax.

3 3/4 Ilanz (in Romansch, Glion or Ilon).—(Inn : Löwe, near the bridge. Latrobe calls it the cleanest, prettiest, and most unassuming in he had seen since he left England.) Ilanz is the only place in the valley deserving the name of town, and is the capital of the Graue Bund, or Grey league, p. 247. Its 568 inhabitants speak the Romansch tongue, and this dialect prevails in a large portion of the valley. This place, situated on the rt. bank of the river, exhibits marks of poverty, though the country around is fertile; its walls are in a state of dilapidation.

Obersax, a village on the same side of the Rhine as Ilanz, and about 4 miles higher up, is German, while all the villages around it are Romansch. In its vicinity stand 4 ancient castles, now picturesque ruins, about 1 1/2 mile apart from another. Their names are Mooreck, Schwartzenstein, Riedburg, and Axenstein. Before reaching Ober Sax the road crosses the river, but again crosses to the 1. bank before arriving at

Trons (in Rhotian, Tron) - (Inn: Casa Nuova?) — a village in a singularly - beautiful situation, at a little distance from the Rhine. Its 800 inhabitants are Catholics and speak Romansch. There are iron-works in the vicinity. Trons is chiefly remarkable, however, as the cradle of liberty among the Rhotian Alps, the Grütli of Grison history. Beneath the shade of the neighbouring forest the peasants met at the beginning of the fifteenth century to concert the plans of liberating themselves and their children from the oppression and slavery of their feudal lords, 3 or 4 of whose castles, now in ruins, may still be seen frowning down from the neighbouring crags.

Near the entrance of the village stands the decayed but venerated trunk of a Sycamore (Acer Pseudoplatanus: German, ahorn), now probably 6 or 7 centuries old, a mere trunk, cloven and hollow, beneath whose once spreading branches the deputies of the peasants met the nobles who were favourable to their cause, in March, 1424, and took the oath of fidelity to one another, and to their free constitution then established. Such is the origin of the GREY LEAGUE,

Graue bund, so called from the grey beards, or the grey homespun garb of the venerable assembly. Close to the sycamore-tree stands the little Chapel of St. Anne, whose portico is adorned with the mottoes "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 League, the principal figures being the Abbot of Dissentis, in the robes of his order; the Count of Sax, with a white flowing beard; and the Lord of Rhotzuns. 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 walkingsticks. 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 thirts 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.

The inhabitants of the upper part of the valley, about Dissentis, are Catholics, as will become apparent from the increased number of churches and crosses. The mountains which bound it change from limestone to primitive rocks, and give a different character to its scenery.

Opposite Sumvix the valley of that name opens out; it stretches many miles S., far into the Alps. Beyond it the eye is arrested by the view of the abbey and village of

2 1/4 Dissentis-(Inn: Rathhaus, bad)-The Benedictine Abbey of Dissentis (in Romansch Mustär, or Monster, from Lat. Monasterium) is venerable as one of the oldest ecclesiastical establishments in Switzerland, founded, it is said, by the Scotch Monk Siegbert, a companion of St. Gall, and as the nucleus of early civilization in this wild and remote country. It stands on the slope of a hill, protected by a forest above it from falling avalanches, on the 1. bank of the Vorder-Rhine, at the junction of the two Alpine torrents which unite in forming that branch of the river. The word venerable will not apply to the actual building, for, though dilapitated, it is modern, having been built since 1799, when the ruthless French invaders burnt it, and along with it the library formed in the seventh and eighth centuries. It must be allowed that provocation was given for this act of vengeance, by the barbarous and cruel murder of a party of French soldiers, who had been disarmed and taken prisoners by the Swiss Landsturm, and who were here set upon by the infuriated inhabitants of this part of the valley, and literally cut or torn to pieces. The abbey has, however, an imposing appearance from its size and position, towering above the humble hovels of the village below, as its rich and power