rack plunges at one bound into
the valley of the Inn, following a narrow cornice carved from the
smooth bank of snow, and hung, without break or barrier, a
thousand feet or more above the torrent. The summer road is lost in
snow-drifts. The galleries built as a protection from avalanches,
which sweep in rivers from those grim, bare fells above, are blocked
with snow. Their useless arches yawn, as we glide over or outside
them, by paths which instinct in our horse and driver traces. As a fly
may creep along a house-roof, slanting downwards we descend. One whisk
from the swinged tail of an avalanche would hurl us, like a fly, into
the ruin of the gaping gorge. But this season little snow has fallen
on the higher hills; and what still lies there, is hard frozen.
Therefore we have no fear, as we whirl fast and faster from the
snow-fields into the black forests of gnarled cembras and wind-wearied
pines. Then Suess is reached, where the Inn hurries its shallow waters
clogged with ice-floes through a sleepy hamlet. The stream is pure and
green; for the fountains of the glaciers are locked by winter frosts;
and only clear rills from perennial sources swell its tide. At Suess
we lost the sun, and toiled in garish gloom and silence, nipped by the
ever-deepening cold of evening, upwards for four hours to Samaden.

The next day was spent in visiting the winter colony at San Moritz,
where the Kulm Hotel, tenanted by some twenty guests, presented in its
vastness the appearance of a country-house. One of the prettiest spots
in the world is the ice-rink, fashioned by the skill of Herr Caspar
Badrutt on a high raised terrace, commanding the valley of the Inn and
the ponderous bulwarks of Bernina. The silhouettes of skaters, defined
against that landscape of pure white, passed to and fro beneath a
cloudless sky. Ladies sat and worked or read on seats upon the ice.
Not a breath of wind was astir, and warm beneficent sunlight flooded
the immeasurable air. Only, as the day declined, some iridescent films
overspread the west; and just above Maloja the apparition of a
mock sun--a well-defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular
intervals by four globes--seemed to portend a change of weather. This
forecast fortunately proved delusive. We drove back to Samaden across
the silent snow, enjoying those delicate tints of rose and violet and
saffron which shed enchantment for one hour over the white monotony of
Alpine winter.

At half-past e