hem in hot haste
to the post. Long experience only confirms the first impression, that,
of all cold, the cold of an Italian winter is most penetrating. As
we lumbered out of Sondrio in a heavy diligence, I could have fancied
myself back once again at Radicofani or among the Ciminian hills. The
frost was penetrating. Fur-coats would not keep it out; and we longed
to be once more in open sledges on Bernina rather than enclosed in
that cold coupe. Now we passed Grumello, the second largest of the
renowned vine districts; and always keeping the white mass of Monte di
Disgrazia in sight, rolled at last into Morbegno. Here the Valtelline
vintage properly ends, though much of the ordinary wine is probably
supplied from the inferior produce of these fields. It was past
noon when we reached Colico, and saw the Lake of Como glittering in
sunlight, dazzling cloaks of snow on all the mountains, which look as
dry and brown as dead beech-leaves at this season. Our Bacchic journey
had reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we
made our way across the Spluegen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched
galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges
down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that
pass from the Italian side in winter will forget. We left the refuge
station at the top together with a train of wine-sledges, and passed
them in the midst of the wild descent. Looking back, I saw two of
their horses stumble in the plunge and roll headlong over. Unluckily
in one of these somersaults a man was injured. Flung ahead into the
snow by the first lurch, the sledge and wine-cask crossed him like a
garden-roller. Had his bed not been of snow, he must have been crushed
to death; and as it was, he presented a woeful appearance when he
afterwards arrived at Spluegen.

VI

Though not strictly connected with the subject of this paper, I shall
conclude these notes of winter wanderings in the high Alps with an
episode which illustrates their curious vicissitudes.

It was late in the month of March, and nearly all the mountain roads
were open for wheeled vehicles. A carriage and four horses came to
meet us at the termination of a railway journey in Bagalz. We spent
one day in visiting old houses of the Grisons aristocracy at Mayenfeld
and Zizers, rejoicing in the early sunshine, which had spread the
fields with spring flowers--primroses and oxlips, violets, anemones,
and bright blue