[23] The information is somewhat contradictory. Tschudi speaks of a 'new path;' a writer in the last year's publication of the German Alpine Club talks of the climb as decidedly difficult.
[24] The summits of Piz Pisoc and Piz St. Jon are, as the crow flies, 3,250 mètres apart; the bottom of the Scarl Thal is 1,600 mètres, or about 5,400 ft. below them. The average of the slopes on both sides the valley would be 45°.
[25] One of the sources of the Rhine is in Italy. The pasturages of Val di Lei, a lateral glen of the Aversthal, are pastured by Italian shepherds, and included within the Italian frontier.
[26] See The Grisons, by Mrs. H. Freshfield. Longmans & Co.
[27] I ascended Piz Quatervals some years later from Val Tantermuoza, a glen opening above Zernetz, and returned to the Engadine by the way indicated above. The head of Val Trupchum is very wild, but the walk as a whole is disappointing.
[28] Herr Ziegler's map of S.E. Switzerland includes this country. The scale is large, and the execution beautiful, but the corrections introduced on the very inaccurate Lombard map are but slight.
[29] Travellers often forget that all locked luggage coming from Switzerland is stopped at the Italian custom-house. In the present instance the portmanteau had been directed Porlezza, in ignorance that, by an absurd postal law, which it is worth while to call notice to, everything is sent from Lugano to Porlezza viâ Como!
[30] See Mr. J. A. Symonds' charming description of the Italian foothills in spring, in Sketches from Italy and Greece.
[31] In this statement Coryat is supported by the best Swiss authorities of the time. The belief in the pre-eminence of this part of the chain was probably grounded on the plausible argument that, as the two greatest rivers of the Alps rise in this group, and all rivers flow down hill, the region containing their sources must be the most elevated.
[32] On the rocky knoll in the centre of the delta of the Adda, I find printed on the Lombard map the Spanish word 'Fuentes.' This was doubtless the site of the castle.