squills. At Chur we slept, and early next morning
started for our homeward drive to Davos. Bad weather had declared
itself in the night. It blew violently, and the rain soon changed to
snow, frozen by a bitter north blast. Crossing the dreary heath of
Lenz was both magnificent and dreadful. By the time we reached Wiesen,
all the forests were laden with snow, the roads deep in snow-drifts,
the whole scene wintrier than it had been the winter through.

At Wiesen we should have stayed, for evening was fast setting in. But
in ordinary weather it is only a two hours drive from Wiesen to Davos.
Our coachman made no objections to resuming the journey, and our four
horses had but a light load to drag. So we telegraphed for supper to
be prepared, and started between five and six.

A deep gorge has to be traversed, where the torrent cleaves its way
between jaws of limestone precipices. The road is carried along ledges
and through tunnels in the rock. Avalanches, which sweep this passage
annually from the hills above, give it the name of Zuege, or the
Snow-Paths. As we entered the gorge darkness fell, the horses dragged
more heavily, and it soon became evident that our Tyrolese driver was
hopelessly drunk. He nearly upset us twice by taking sharp turns in
the road, banged the carriage against telegraph posts and jutting
rocks, shaved the very verge of the torrent in places where there
was no parapet, and, what was worst of all, refused to leave his box
without a fight. The darkness by this time was all but total, and a
blinding snow-storm swept howling through the ravine. At length we
got the carriage to a dead-stop, and floundered out in deep wet
snow toward some wooden huts where miners in old days made their
habitation. The place, by a curious, perhaps unconscious irony, is
called Hoffnungsau, or the Meadow of Hope. Indeed, it is not ill
named; for many wanderers, escaping, as we did, from the dreadful
gorge of Avalanches on a stormy night, may have felt, as we now felt,
their hope reviving when they reached this shelter.

There was no light; nothing above, beneath, around, on any side, but
tearing tempest and snow whirled through the ravine. The horses
were taken out of the carriage; on their way to the stable, which
fortunately in these mountain regions will be always found beside the
poorest habitation, one of them fell back across a wall and nearly
broke his spine. Hoffnungsau is inhabited all through the year. In its
di