CHAPTER III.

VAL BREGAGLIA.

I

IN ancient times a Rhætian highway, in the Middle Ages "Pregell," " VII jurisdiction of the Gotteshausbund," in all times much devastated by war, this busy valley, home of stout patriots and traders, is now chiefly known as a convenient approach to the Engadine. From Chiavenna, the road winds up through the hills by the edge of the swift-flashing Maira. The scenery remains southern for a while: vines, chestnuts, dry torrent beds, spreading like white fans at the feet of sunburnt crags, picturesque, tumbledown hamlets and bell-towers half hidden in the woods. Presently, across stream, the mountains shrink back, and a

chaos of wooded knolls and moss-grown rocks marks the site of long-buried Piuro. In old times this was an important city, almost the size of Chiavenna, and famed for refinement and luxury. For Piuro was the resort of great merchants, engaged in the wealthy carrying trade between Germany, Italy and the East, who took their pleasure here while keeping an eye to business with silk mills and slate quarries. Their palaces were filled with treasure of art, rich tapestries and brocades, while their gardens, sheltered from Alpine blasts by protecting mountains, rivalled those of the Riviera in luxuriance of vegetation. But one summer night, in 1618, the peak overhanging the quarries, tall Monte Conto, gave way, and suddenly crashed down on the unfortunate city. Scarcely anyone escaped, and thousands of human beings lie buried beneath the rocks amid ruined homes and stores of wealth. In this age of speculation and dynamite it seems strange that no company should have been started for exhuming the treasures of Piuro.

A few miles on, shingled chalets begin to appear. We pass the Italian Custom-house that will be so unpleasant on our return south, and unmolested by the wiser guardians of Swiss interests, enter the Republic at prosperous Castasegna. Soon Italian accents are heard again, but the frontier is marked by German speech, German schopps of beer at the café. Looking up the narrow street, as through a telescope, we see straight ahead a white church on a lofty cliff, and are told it is Soglio, the goal of our journey. It vanishes at the next turn and grander scenes come in view. The Bondasca glacier glitters on high amid bristling peaks, vines yield to walnuts, and the chestnuts retreat to our side of the river, stretching for miles in billows of velvet, the finest chestnut forest of Switzerland. Across the Maira, pinewoods stream down the mountain flank, cloven by frequent cascades, to a belt of larches and pastures. We pass the De Salis manor house, squarely planted in a meadow near Bondo, backed by the precipices barricading the valley, and soon turn up a side road through the

forest. What is this idyllic village of chalets and barns clustered on the grass among the huge trees? Can it be Soglio? But where are the inhabitants ? All doors and windows are closed; there is no sound no smoke, no trace of living beings! Our driver laughingly explains that the "village" is only a group of "Cascine " for the drying of chestnuts and storing of hay. Nobody lives here save for a week or so in autumn when the prickly harvest is ripe. Yet one of these broad huts, near the streamlet flashing down from the rocks, and commanding such lovely views through bowers of greenery would be a sweeter summer home than any inn.

The next turn of the road brings us face to face with a mighty cascade-the Caroggia—which after plunging into a fairy pool, vanishes in the sea of chestnuts beneath on its way to the river. And there is Soglio, still far above. Beside the white church seen from the frontier stands a gaunt new house on the brink of the cliff, and we are glad to know it is not our hotel. Leaving the forest behind,

we mount past steep grassy slopes to the shelf on which Soglio is perched, overhung by jagged rocks and perpendicular pinewoods. The village is unattractive at first sight as we jolt through crooked, narrow lanes, bordered by dungheaps and grimy dwellings of primitive Alpine architecture. The population apparently consists of a few old women squatted on doorsteps and a dozen stolidly staring children. All the men are up at the " Alps" making cheese and hay. But now comes a pleasant surprise. Our carriage wriggles out of a squalid lane on to an open space lined on one side by stout stone houses with bulging iron balconies, and halts at the door of a massive Renaissance building with a group of tall poplars rising to its roof. This is the hotel, and English faces peep out beneath the blue sun blinds on the first floor. It is a mansion, belonging to the De Salis family, but deserted by them half a century ago, and now let to an inn-keeper. A tall slice of a house at the corner of the Piazza is a part of the original nest of the Soglio branch of the clan that was