of Coire in the Grisons, on the 4th of October, having lost one-fourth of his numbers in the eleven days which he had spent in marching and fighting since his departure from Italy.

The inhabitants of the Mouottathal were grievously injured by this war; Ebel tells us that at the commencement of the year 1800, between six and seven hundred of them— that is, three-fourths of their whole number-were reduced to such a state of indigence as to be obliged to inscribe their names on the list of the poor. The same was the case with one-fourth of the remaining population of the canton, so completely had its prosperity, "the work of 500 years of peace," been destroyed in two short years of warfare. Many resorted to emigration; and hundreds of children were dispersed into other parts of Switzerland, there to find the shelter of which they had been deprived in their native valleys. Yet all this misery has now passed away. "Time," says Simond, "and patient industry, have effaced all traces of calamities seemingly so recent, and Schwitz appears at present one of the most prosperous of the Swiss cantons."

"Among the strange places," says Dr. James Johnson, "into which man has penetrated in search of treasure or health, there is probably not one on this earth, or under it, more wonderful than the baths of Pfeffers, situated in the country of the Grisons, a few miles distant from the Spulgen road, as it leads from Wallenstadt to Coire. They are little known to, and still less frequented by the English; for we could not learn that any of our countrymen had visited them during the summer of 1834.

"Having procured five small and steady horses accustomed to the locality, a party of three ladies and two gentlemen started from the little town of Ragatz on a beautiful morning in August, and commenced a steep and zig-zag ascent up the mountain, through a forest of majestic pines and other trees. In a quarter of an hour, we heard the roar of a torrent, but could see nothing of itself or even its bed. The path, however, soon approached the verge of a dark and tremendous ravine, the sides of which were composed of perpendicular rocks several hundred feet high, and at the bottom of which the Tamina, a rapid mountain torrent, foamed along in its course to the valley of Sargans, there to fall into the Upper Rhine. The stream itself, however, was far beyond our view, and was only known by its hollow and distant murmurs. The ascent, for the first three miles, is extremely fatiguing, so that the horses were obliged to take breath every ten minutes. The narrow path (for it is only a kind of mule-track) often winded along the very brink of the precipice, on our left, yet the eye could not penetrate to the bottom of the abyss. After more than an hour of toilsome climbing, we emerged from the wood, and found ourselves in one of the most picturesque and romantic spots that can well be imagined. The road now meanders horizontally through a high, but cultivated region, towards the village of Valentz, through fields, gardens, vineyards, and meadows, studded with chaumiers and châlets perched fantastically on projecting ledges of rock, or sheltered from the winds by tall and verdant pines. The prospect from Valentz, or rather from above the village, is one of the most beautiful and splendid I have anywhere seen in Switzerland. are there at a sufficient distance from the horrid ravine, to contemplate it without terror, and listen to the roaring torrent, thundering unseen, along its rugged and precipitous bed. Beyond the ravine we see the monastery and village of Pfeffers, perched on a high and apparently inaccessible promontory, over which rise Alpine mountains, their sides covered with woods, their summits with snow, and their gorges glittering with glaciers. But it is towards the east that the prospect is most magnificent and varied. The eye ranges, with equal pleasure and astonishment, over the valley of Sargans, through which rolls the infant Rhine, and beyond which the majestic ranges of the Rhetian Alps, ten thousand feet high, rise one over the other, till their summits mingle with the clouds. Among these ranges the Scesa-plana, the Angstenberg, the Flesch

We

(like a gigantic pyramid), and in the distance the Alps that tower round Feldkirck are the most prominent features. During our journey to the baths, the morning sun played on the snowy summits of the distant mountains, and marked their forms on the bluc expanse behind them, in the most distinct outlines. But, on our return, in the afternoon, when the fleecy clouds had assembled, in fantastic groups, along the lofty barrier, the reflexions and refractions of the solar beams threw a splendid crown of glory round the icy heads of the Rhetian Alps-changing that "cold sublimity" with which the morning atmosphere had invested them, into a glow of illumination which no pen or pencil could portray. To enjoy the widest possible range of this matchless prospect, the tourist must climb the peaks that overhang the village, when his eye may wander over the whole of the Grison Alps and valleys, even to the lake of Constance.

"From Valentz we turned abruptly down towards the ravine, at the very bottom of which are the baths of Pfeffers. The descent is by a series of acute and precipitous tourniquets, requiring great caution, as the horses themselves could hardly keep on their legs, even when eased of their riders. At length we found ourselves in the area of a vast edifice, resembling an overgrown factory, with a thousand windows, and six or seven stories high. It is built on a ledge of rock that lies on the left bank of the Tamina torrent, which chafes along its foundation. The precipice on the opposite side of the Tamina, and distant about fifty paces from the mansion, or rather hospital, rises five or six hundred feet, as perpendicular as a wall, keeping the edifice in perpetual shade, except for a few hours in the middle of the day. The left bank of the ravine, on which the hospital stands, is less precipitous, as it admits of a zig-zag path to and from the baths. The locale, altogether, of such an establishment, at the very bottom of a frightful ravine, and for ever chafed by a roaring torrent, is the most singularly wild and picturesque I had ever beheld; but the wonders of Pfeffers are not yet even glanced at.

"From the western extremity of this vast asylum of invalids, a narrow wooden bridge spans the Tamina, and by it we gain footing on a small platform of a rock on the opposite side. Here a remarkable phenomenon presents itself. The deep ravine, which had hitherto preserved a width of some 150 feet, contracts, all at once, into a narrow cleft or crevasse, of less than twenty feet, whose marble sides shoot up from the bed of the torrent, to a height of four or five hundred feet, not merely perpendicular, but actually inclining towards each other, so that, at their summits, they almost touch, thus leaving a narrow fissure through which a faint glimmering of light descends, and just serves to render objects visible within this gloomy cavern. Out of this recess the Tamina darts in a sheet of foam, and with a deafening noise reverberated from the rocks within and without the crevasse. On approaching the entrance, the eye penetrates along a majestic vista of marble walls in close approximation, and terminating in obscurity, with a narrow waving line of sky above, and a roaring torrent below! Along the southern wall of this sombre gorge, a fragile scaffold, of only two planks in breadth, is seen to run, suspended as it were in air, fifty feet above the torrent, and three or four hundred feet beneath the crevice that admits air and light from heaven into the profound abyss. This frail and frightful foot-path is continued (will it be believed?) nearly a quarter of a mile into the marble womb of the mountain ! Its construction must have been a work of great difficulty and peril; for its transit cannot be made even by the most curious and adventurous travellers, without fear and trembling, amounting often to a sense of shuddering and horror. Along these two planks we crept or crawled, with faltering steps and palpitating hearts. It has been my fortune to visit most of the wonderful localities of this globe, but an equal to this I never beheld.

"Imagination,' says an intelligent traveller, 'the most vivid, could not portray the portals of Tartarus under forms more hideous than those which nature has displayed in this place. We enter this gorge on a bridge of planks (pont de planches) sustained by

wedges driven into the rocks. It takes a quarter of an hour or more to traverse this bridge, and it requires the utmost precaution. It is suspended over the Tamina, which

is heard rolling furiously at a great depth beneath. The walls of this cavern, twisted, torn, and split (les parois laterales contournées, fendues, et dechirées) in various ways, rise perpendicular, and even incline towards each other, in the form of a dome; whilst

ENTRANCE OF THE VIA MALA.

the faint light that enters from the portal at the end, and the crevice above, diminishes as we proceed ;-the cold and humidity augmenting the horror produced by the scene. The fragments of rock sometimes overhang this gangway in such a manner that the passenger cannot walk upright:-at others, the marble wall recedes so much, that he is unable to lean against it for support. The scaffold is narrow, often slippery; and sometimes there is but a single plank, separating us from the black abyss of the Tamina. He who has cool courage, a steady eye, and a firm step, ought to attempt this formidable excursion (épouvantable excursion) in clear and dry weather, lest he should find the planks wet and slippery. He should start in the middle of the day, with a slow and measured step, and without a stick. The safest plan is to have two guides supporting a pole, on the inside of which the stranger is to walk."

"We neglected this precaution, and four out of the five pushed on, even without a guide at all. At forty or fifty paces from the entrance the gloom increases, while the roar of the torrent beneath, reverberated from the sides of the cavern, augments the sense of danger and the horror of the scene. The meridian sun penetrated sufficiently through the narrow line of fissure at the summit of the dome to throw a variety of lights and of shadows over the vast masses of variegated marble composing the walls of this stupendous cavern, compared with which those of Salsette, Elephanta, and even Staffa, shrink into insignificance. A wooden pipe, which conveys the hot waters from their source to the baths, runs along in the angle between the scaffold and the rocks, and proves very serviceable, both as a support for one hand while pacing the plank, and as a seat, when the passenger wishes to rest, and contemplate the wonders of the cavern. At about one-third of the distance inward, I would advise the tourist to halt, and survey the singular locality in which he is placed. The inequality of breadth in the long chink that divides the dome above, admits the light in very different proportions, and presents objects in a variety of aspects. The first impression which occupies the mind is caused by the cavern itself, with reflections on the portentous convulsion of nature which split the marble rock in twain, and opened a gigantic aqueduct for the mountain torrent.

"After a few minutes' rumination on the action of subterranean fire, our attention is attracted to the slow but powerful operation of water on the solid parietes of this infernal grotto. We plainly perceive that the boisterous torrent has, in the course of time, and especially when swelled by rains, caused wonderful changes both in its bed and its banks. I would direct the attention of the traveller to a remarkable excavation formed by the waters on the opposite side of the chasm, and in a part more sombre than usual, in consequence of a bridge that spans the crevice above, and leads to the Convent of Pfeffers. This natural grotto is hollowed out of the marble rock to the depth of thirty feet, being nearly forty feet in width, by twenty-six feet in height. It is difficult not to attribute it to art; and, as the whole cavern constantly reminds us of the Tartarean Regions, this beautifully vaulted grotto seems to be fitted for the throne of Pluto and Proserpine or, perhaps, for the tribunal of Rhadamanthus and his brothers of the Bench, while passing sentence on the ghosts that glide down this Acheron or Cocytusfor had the Tamina been known to the ancient poets, it would assuredly have been ranked as one of the rivers of Hell

"It is surprising that the author of the Voyage Pittoresque en Suisse,' and even Dr. Ebell, should have been led into the monstrous error of imagining that the torrent of the Tamina had, in the course of ages, hollowed out of the marble rock this profound bed for itself. We might just as well suppose that the bed of the Mediterranean had been scooped out by the waters of the Hellespont, in their way from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. The mountain was rent by some convulsion of Nature, and apparently from below upwards, as the breadth at the bed of the Tamina is far broader than the external crevice above."