For those who do not care to linger at Tarasp itself there is, a little higher up the mountain, and reached by a walk of fifteen minutes from the Kurhaus, a lovely settlement, called Vulpera. Here, too, are several other hos-telries, replete with every comfort, commanding noble views, and in immediate proximity to a vast pine forest, threaded with delightful paths. It fills a stranger with surprise to find in such remote localities as this some of the best-built, best-appointed, and best-managed hotels in the world; but every traveler in Switzerland knows that such establishments are met with now in almost every noted habitable spot among the Alps. How they can pay, when the real "season" is so short, and competition is so keen, must always be a mystery to the layman; for, as a rule, the first-class Swiss hotels are furnished more than comfortably, and managed on a generous plan.

The Kurhaus Garden.

Aside from all material conveniences, however, Vulpera seemed .to me a most desirable region for a summer sojourn, especially as its air, while having, at this height of more than four thousand feet, the purity and bracing qualities for which the Engadine is so renowned, is not so stimulating to the nerves or subject to quick, violent changes, as is the atmosphere of the upper end of the valley, nearly two thousand feet higher still.

The villages through which we passed in driving up the Engadine, though often interesting architecturally and historically, can hardly be called beautiful. Their houses, some of which bear dates as old as 1498 and 1506, are always built of stone, with a smooth stucco coating, usually painted white. There is an air of stern reserve about them, not to say exclusive-ness, due partly to their small and deep-set windows, which resemble sunken coffers in a ceiling, and partly to the fact that many of them turn a long and narrow side to the main street, suggestive of a man who will not look his neighbors in the face. Still, they are clean and well-kept in appearance, and even the poorest have their window-sills adorned with flowers. These stuccoed dwellings are occasionally decorated with the family coat of arms or strangely sculptured figures, but on the whole have fewer mural ornamen tations than similar houses in Bavaria or the Tyrol.

At Vulpera, Near Tarasp.

Schuls, With Vulpera In The Distance.

Yet the inhabitants of this valley are passionately fond of their plain homes, and one at least has published to the world on the façade of his attractive dwelling that his particular plot of earth is pleasanter to him than any other in the world; for over his front door I read the following well-known line from Horace:

"Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet".

That an intelligent Engadiner should know something of the Latin tongue, if not of its old, classic poets, is not surprising when one learns that the vernacular of this valley is not German, but "Romantsch," - an offspring of the lingua rustica of the Roman empire. It is akin to the "Ladin" language spoken in the Tyrolese Grödner Thal,1 and is an eloquent reminder of the time when almost all that part of Europe occupied at present by the Grisons and Tyrol was conquered by Tiberius and Drusus, - stepsons of Augustus, shortly before the advent of the Christian era. The warlike Rhætians, who till then had been the masters of that region, were thenceforth gradually absorbed into Rome's mighty sovereignty, and came at last to speak the language of their conquerors; and this, in its turn, isolated for so many years in these remote and almost inaccessible valleys, has held its own against the subsequent invasion of the German tongue. One finds odd traces of it everywhere, in signs on public buildings, on tombstones in the cemeteries, and in the names of rivers, towns, and mountains. Thus the word "Inn" is a derivation of the Latin Œnus; the Silveretta forest is but a transformation of the Silva Rhœtiæ; Trafoi is a contraction of Tres Fontes; Pons Rhœtiæ has been changed to Pontresina; and old Samaden, at the junction of the Inn and its first glacial tributary, was formerly Ad Siimmum Œni.

1 See Volume "South Tyro1".