keeping the white mass of Monte di Disgrazia in sight, rolled at last into Morbegno.  Here the Valtelline vintage properly ends, though much of the ordinary wine is probably supplied from the inferior produce of these fields.  It was past noon when we reached Colico, and saw the Lake of Como glittering in sunlight, dazzling cloaks of snow on all the mountains, which look as dry and brown as dead beech-leaves at this season.  Our Bacchic journey had reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we made our way across the Spluegen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that pass from the Italian side in winter will forget.  We left the refuge station at the top together with a train of wine-sledges, and passed them in the midst of the wild descent.  Looking back, I saw two of their horses stumble in the plunge and roll headlong over.  Unluckily in one of these somersaults a man was injured.  Flung ahead into the snow by the first lurch, the sledge and wine-cask crossed him like a garden-roller.  Had his bed not been of snow, he must have been crushed to death; and as it was, he presented a woeful appearance when he afterwards arrived at Spluegen.

VI

Though not strictly connected with the subject of this paper, I shall conclude these notes of winter wanderings in the high Alps with an episode which illustrates their curious vicissitudes.

It was late in the month of March, and nearly all the mountain roads were open for wheeled vehicles.  A carriage and four horses came to meet us at the termination of a railway journey in Bagalz.  We spent one day in visiting old houses of the Grisons aristocracy at Mayenfeld and Zizers, rejoicing in the early sunshine, which had spread the fields with spring flowers—­primroses and oxlips, violets, anemones, and bright blue 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.