THE ENGADINE IN SUMMER.
IT is bard to think, after the liberal allowance of summer weather which has lately been served out to us, in a man- ner untimely but opportune, that people must be already beginning to make their winter arrangements. Yet it is in this month that the devotees of the Engadine will be setting out on 'their pilgrimage to the snowy heights where they expect to recruit their health by the enjoyment of six months of unbroken winter. The important epoch of the " snowing- in " is not far off, after which the Engadine is somewhat difficult of access except to the robust, and the regular winter society will in a few weeks be assembled in that valley of paradoxes, where the skaters on a frozen lake move languidly on account of the heat, and invalids sit out of doors all day long, .and enjoy the sunshine amid surroundings of such a, wintry aspect as would strike a chill to the heart of a polar bear..
To those who have only seen the Engadine in its winter aspect, the view of the same scene in summer would be a per- fect revelation. In place of the dazzling but somewhat dreary monotony of white, only broken by dark intervals of rock or pinewood, the landscape is distinguished by its singularly rich variety of colouring. The winter visitor knows nothing of the bright, fresh green of the meadows, which throws up so effectively the dark masses of pines, relieved again by the duller green of the Alps above, running up from the last level of trees to the wilderness of rock and eternal snow which crowns the whole. Nor can he have witnessed the unceasing, play of tints in lake and stream under the summer sun, with all the inexplicable changes of shade, from the bright blue of the Silvaplana Lake to the peculiar green colour of that of St. Moritz. In summer, too, alone the woods are accessible,. and the pleasant quiet paths and shady corners, away from the continual thunder of vehicles of all kinds along the dusty- high-road. There are even some few favoured spots where one can sit in peace and seclusion, and while enjoying the fine view before one, catch at the same time a glimpse of the
clouds of dust enveloping the hapless travellers beneath us who have not yet found a haven of rest anywhere. 'It is not necessary to have read Lucretius in order to feel one's enjoy- ment heightened by this feature in the landscape. The winter visitor, on the other hand, must as a rule confine his walks to the high-road, the snow on which will have been cleared away to an extent just sufficient for the passage of a sleigh ; so that the humble pedestrian is constrained to retire into the deep snow heaped up on either side, each time that one of those lordly equipages sweeps by him,—which happens, on an average, every two minutes. I admit that almost equal inconveniences result from the plague of dust in summer ; but then, there is hardly a case in which pedestrians cannot contrive to avoid the road altogether by some pleasanter path which is utterly impassable in winter.
But the most striking difference of all is in the visitors themselves. In winter, as I have said, the society is supposed to consist entirely of invalids or people who have come there for their health, together with a considerable contingent of those who are admitted to a kind of honorary membership on the ground that they are the wives, sisters, cousins, aunts, &c., of invalids. I believe that of late years the excellence of the skating has attracted a few perfectly healthy persons for a week or two at Christmas; but this is an innovation which is resented by the conservative. This may sound like a de- pressing condition of affairs, but it should be remembered that real bond .fide invalids, whose condition at home almost incapacitates them from any exertion, become robust, not to say athletic, in the Engadine. The winter visitor does his little best ; he skates, and he toboggans, and he sleighs, and . he gets up amateur theatricals and concerts, and generally exerts his powers of amusing himself and boring his neighbours. But his little gaieties are as -nothing to those of the summer season, when the Sur begins and the water-drinkers come and Americans innumerable, and eat up all the fruit of the ground. and everything else- within reach. It is astounding to think that the winter visitor knows nothing of the Bad, that he regards it neither as a necessity nor as a nuisance, and derives therefrom neither alleviation nor aggravation of the ordinary miseries of human life. He may be aware that old inhabitants apply some such name to a howling wilderness at the upper end of the St. Moritz Lake, where some huge buildings lie untenanted and neglected in the snow, and certain large dogs
• of ferocious aspect threaten the life of the traveller who stops to inspect them ; but the Bad is a word of little meaning to him. Indeed, it is possible that were he suddenly set down in the Engadine in summer, and heard the landlord of a hotel explain the absence of some of his guests to a visitor by saying that "they had all gone to the Bad," he would be apt to form the most erroneous and alarming conclusions.
For the benefit of those who are unacquainted with these localities, either in summer or in winter, it should be explained that there are two villages bearing the name of St. Moritz— the upper, known as St. Moritz-Dorf, or simply the Dorf, for short, which stands on a height overlooking the little Lake of St. Moritz ; and the other, St. Moritz-Bad, or the Bad, which lies on the shore of the lake at the point where the River Inn flows into it. The former of these is the St. Moritz of winter, and, indeed, may be said to represent the Engadine at that season, as hardly any other village has a hotel which keeps open all the year round. The Bad, on the other hand, is the chief of the summer stations where people come for pleasure or to drink the waters ; while Pontresina may be regarded as the climbing capital of the district. The Dorf, again, is, or has been, a genuine Swiss village, while the Bad is absolutely artificial, the very type of a vile d'eaux, with nothing even re- motely characteristic of the country about it. It possesses a spring—or two springs, I believe—of mineral water containing certain healing properties, a great Kurhaus, two or three immense hotels, and a little street of shops, nice little wooden, one-storied erections, with a projecting verandah over the path in front of them, so that visitors may be shielded from the sun while examining their wares. These are, of course, of the Usual kind,—curiosities, old silver, olive-wood, coral, china, Swiss wood-carving, Spanish mantillas, caps, tambourines, knives, &c. The whole place could be taken up and set down again on the Riviera or in the Pyrenees, at Biarritz, Aix-les- Bains, or Wiesbaden, and there would be nothing incongruous about it. Indeed, the greater majority of the shopkeepers have only a temporary establishment here, as part of a regular
circuit ; and the same might be said of most other classes,— the hotel-keepers and servants, of course, most of the cab- drivers, and almost all the beggars.
If there was one point upon which we were all agreed at our quiet little hotel, some two or three miles from that great centre of society, it was that the Bad was a mistake, that it quite spoiled the whole place, that we only wished we had been so fortunate as to come to the Engadine in the old days before it became generally known, and when everything was homely and simple and characteristic. When we did agree upon any point, our unanimity was wonderful, but I am strongly inclined to believe on reflection, that we were on this point a set of unanimous humbugs. For it is certain that we took every excuse to go over there, and that when there we avoided meeting each other, or, if that was impossible, made ridiculous• excuses to explain our presence. In our peaceful seclusion we looked with a kind of cultured disdain upon the hollow world which was kicking up its frivolous heels at St. Moritz. We were fond of pointing out how much wiser and better it was to get up at 4 in the morning to go up the Piz Corvatsch, than to walk up and down in front of the Kurhaus and listen to the band, or shut oneself up all the afternoon in a stuffy casino. But we listened with respect and interest, not to say eagerness, to the items of gossip brought back by the one among us who did not scruple to mingle with the thoughtless throng. Perhaps the only real tangible objection that we had to the people of the Bad was that they would not keep to what we regarded as their own part of the country, but were perpetually intruding the/peeves into our own prettier neighbourhood. This we could not help feeling was quite unjustifiable ; to have our most quiet and secluded paths crowded with Germans and Americans and all kinds of importations from the Bad, when we wanted them all for ourselves, was an undoubted grievance. But perhaps, after all, they had as much right to be there as we had.
A great drawback to the summer season is often theyeather. It is true that I have been assured that the had weather I ex- perienced myself was quite exceptional ; but I do not remember to have met with bad weather anywhere without being assured by the inhabitants that it was quite exceptional. My own conclusions were that on Sundays it always rained, except when it snowed. To make the Sunday sufficiently bad, it was neces- sary for the bad weather to begin on Saturday afternoon, nor had it ever properly recovered itself by Monday. From Tuesday to Friday good weather might usually be expected, with the exception, perhaps, of a thunderstorm on Wednesday or Thursday, just to keep things going. Still, it cannot be denied that when it was fine, it was very fine indeed.
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