206 Route 75. Schwytz to Glarus. of Reding, one of the oldest and noblest in the canton, and whose name appears oftener with credit than any other. There is scarcely a battle in which they are not mentioned, and they have 45 times filled the office of landamman, the highest in the state. In 1798 Aloys Reding, a hero worthy of such an ancestry, led on the brave inhabitants of these mountains to oppose, in defence of their liberties and constitution, a far outnumbering force of French under General Schauenberg. The Swiss met the invaders in the valley of Rothenthurm, and drove them back as far as the lake of Egeri and the field of their ancient victory of Morgarten. This proved but a temporary gleam of success. Their victory had cost them so large a number of men, that they were unable to renew the contest; and an overwhelming force of French marching into the canton rendered all further resistance hopeless. A long descent, commanding a fine view of Schwytz, of the singular and picturesque Mythen and Hacken mountains behind it, and of the lake of Lowertz, with part of the fall of the Rossberg (p. 43-46.), leads through Sattel, past the chapel of Ecce Homo, to Steinen, a small village, having two good inns; nearly 4 hours' drive from Einsiedeln, memorable as the birthplace of Werner Stauffacher, one of the three conspirators of the Grutli (p. 57.). A small chapel, adorned with rude fresco of scenes from his life, and the battle of Morgarten, is dedicated to his memory. It was built in 1400. The Bonehouse is as old as 1111. (See p. 190.) 3 Schwytz. (Route 17.) "Travellers bound from Einsiedeln to the Rigi or Lucerne, need not enter Schwytz. Soon after leaving Steinen, a road branching off to the rt. leads, in about 1 hour, to Goldau (where the ascent of the Rigi begins, and horses may be hired at the Cheval Blanc, p. 46. 49.). Their vehicles should be sent round to meet them at Kussnacht, if they are going to Lucerne. The summit of the Rigi may be easily reached in 9 hours from Einsiedeln." C. D. ROUTE 75. SCHWYTZ TO GLARUS, BY THE MUOTTA THAL, THE PASS OF THE PRAGEL, AND THE KLÖNTHAL. 10 stunden=323 Eng. miles. A very rough char-road ascends the valley as far as Muotta. Some distance may be saved to the pedestrian by keeping to footpaths known to the guides. The road crosses the plain to Ibach, a village of scattered houses at the mouth of the Muotta thal, which here assumes the character of a contracted gorge; higher up it opens out, and exhibits considerable capabilities for cultivation; it abounds with exquisite scenery. The road ascends the 1. bank of the stream, traversing Ober Schönenbach, down to which point the Russians, under Suwarrow, drove the French, commanded by Massena, Mortier, and Soult, in his desperate attempt to force his way through them to join the Russian army at Zurich, in 1799. "The bridge near this, which carries the road over to the rt. bank, was taken and retaken many times; the mingled blood of the 2 nations crimsoned the stream which carried down their floating bodies.” Beyond Ried there is another bridge, and a third brings the traveller to 23 Muotta, or Mutten, the principal village of the valley, on the rt. bank of the stream. The parish contains 1480 inhabitants. In the neighbourhood is the Nunnery of St. Joseph, a very ancient and primitive convent, founded 1280. The sisters are poor, and their mode of living homely; they make their own clothes and their own hay; the superior is called Frau Mutter. They receive visits from strangers without the intervention of | Massena; but the republicans were a grating, and will even give a lodging to a respectable traveller. Whoever avails himself of this must remember that the convent is too poor to afford gratuitous hospitality. again repulsed with loss, and driven back nearly to Schwytz. Suwarrow expected to be able to reach Zurich from Glarus, there to join and rally the broken forces of Korsakow; but Molitor, in person, warned of his approach, took possession of the position of Näfels, blocking up the outlet of the Linth thal, as Massena had intercepted his passage down the Muotta thal, and the Russian once more found his plans foiled and baffled. Fearing to be hemmed in on all sides by the French, he gave his troops a few days of rest at Glarus, rendered absolutely indispensable by the fatigues they had undergone, after which he once more took to the mountains, ascending the Sernft thal (Route 76) to the Grisons. The path from Muotta to the pass of the Pragel (Suwarrow's line of march) is rather steep and stony, but is practicable for horses. The distance from Muotta to the lake of Klön is calculated at about 20 miles; about 31 to the foot of the ascent, 4 to the cross, nearly 3 to the summit of the pass, 1 to Klön, and 6 to Auen, on the lake. On the night of the 27th and 28th of September, 1799, the inhabitants of the remote and peaceful valley of Muotta were surprised by the arrival of an army of an unknown nation and tongue, whose very name many of them had never heard, which came pouring down upon their cottages and green fields from the heights of the Kinzig Culm, by pathless abysses and precipices which the very shepherds cross with difficulty and dread. These were the 24,000 Russians under Suwarrow, whose previous march out of Italy has already been detailed in Routes 34 and 72. Here the general first heard the news of the defeat of Korsakow and the main Russian army at Zurich. He at first gave no credence to the report, and would have hung the peasant who communicated it as a spy and traitor, but for the intercession of the lady mother of St. Joseph's nunnery. He was now beset on all sides; part of Lecourbe's division followed his rear, Molitor occupied the summit of the Muotta thal, and Mortier and Massena blocked up its mouth. The bold attempt to cut his way out, through the forces of the latter ge- The Klönthal, into which the traneral, was defeated, as already men- veller now descends, is exceedingly tioned, chiefly by the unexpected beautiful. On the rt. hand it is arrival of a fresh reinforcement under walled in by the Glärnisch rising in Lecourbe in person, though with vast an abrupt and sheer precipice, termiloss to the French. The veteran con- nated by a sharp edge of ice, and on queror was compelled for the first the 1. by the Wiggis, scarcely less time in his career, to order a retreat, abrupt. Deep in the recesses of this and to adopt the only alternative of charming valley lies a beautiful Lake ascending the valley and crossing the about 2 miles long, embedded deeply Pragel into Glarus. The detach- at the foot of the Glärnisch, whose ments of Molitor's advanced guard vast grey precipices descend at this were quickly driven in before him, point almost perpendicularly into the and the greater portion made prison- water. It is surrounded by meaers. Suwarrow's rear-guard, how-dows of the most verdant green, coever, encumbered with sick and vered until the end of autumn with wounded, was greatly harassed by flowers. The precipitous tracks along 31 The summit of the pass, 5200 ft. above the sea, is the boundary line of cantons Schwytz and Glarus. It is rarely free from snow before the month of June. 208 Glarus to Coire, by the Sernft Thal. Route 76. the side of the valley, along which some adventurous French pushed forward in pursuit of the Russians, are pointed out. Ebel deservedly calls the Klönthal 'une des vallées les plus gracieuses qu'il y ait dans les Alpes.' Two Swiss have inscribed on a rock at the foot of the Glärnisch, by the side of a water-fall, an epitaph in memory of Solomon Gessner, the pastoral poet, author of the Death of Abel, who used to repair hither from Zurich, and spend the summer in a châlet. This spot is about 8 miles from Glarus. After passing through Riedern, the traveller soon reaches the high road, and turning to the rt. ascends the Lintthal about a mile to 4 Glarus, in Route 72. ROUTE 76. GLARUS TO COIRE, UP THE SERNFT THAL. 13 stunden =43 English miles. A char-road as far as Elm; beyond that a footpath, difficult and fatiguing. About 3 miles above Glarus the valley of the Linth divides into two branches. Out of the 1. or E. branch issues the Sernft: it is sometimes called Kleinthal, to distinguish it from the larger W. branch, or Linththal. At Enghi, the first village, there is no inn. Matt, another village, stands on the rt. bank of the Sernft, and at the mouth of the minor vale of the Krauchthal, up which runs a path to Sargans, over the Riseten pass, 7 stunden. The quarries in the Plattenberg, a mountain of the grauwacke and clayslate on the 1. side of the valley, opposite Matt, furnish excellent slates for roofing or for writing. Most of the schools in Switzerland are supplied from hence; and the slate was formerly exported down the Rhine to Holland and the Indies. This slate is well known to geologists for the beautiful and perfect casts of fossil fish, in which it abounds. The lower portion of the valley is unhealthy, as may be learned from the occurrence of goître and cretinism (those afflicted with the latter are here called Tölpel, § 19.); but the inhabitants of the upper extremity are a fine and hardy race. 4 Elm (where the inn is better than lower down) is the highest village in the valley. "There is a way from Elm to the Baths of Pfeffers a fatiguing walk of 13 hours. The path ascends the Unter-thal, crosses the ridge of the Ramin into the Weistannen Thal. There is a tolerable path as far as a châlet on the E. slope of the pass; beyond this there is scarcely any trace of one, and the passage is not practicable for mules. From this châlet you turn to the S. of E., and cross 2 ravines into the Kalfeuser Thal, a mile or two below the source of the Tamīna, which rises at the head of that valley, in the glacier of Sardona. The scenery of the Gorge of the Tamīna is magnificently grand. The Kalfeuser Thal terminates at Vättis, at the foot of the Calanda-berg, where the river suddenly alters its course, and bends to the N. There is no village where refreshment or accommodation can be obtained between Elm and Vättis."-W. C. At Vättis there is a little inn; it is 4 hours' walk up the valley from Pfeffers to Weisstannen where are two abominable cabarets. From Weisstannen a path leads in 5 hours to Matt, over the Risenten Grat. N. B. Guides are necessary. At Elm the valley of the Sernft divides again, and minor paths ramify hence-1. Up to the head of the valley, and over the pass of Panix, called, in the language of the Grisons, al quolm de Pejnu. I.; 2. The pass of the Segnes, which we propose to follow. Near the Tschingel is the Martinsloch, a singular hole or gap in the precipice, through which the sun shines two or three times in the year upon the village of Elm. The Sernft Thal. Suwarrow, after the almost incredible march detailed in the preceding route, remained like a stag at bay for three or four days at Glarus for the purpose of resting his wearied troops, though not a day was passed without skirmishes more or less severe with the enemy. At length, finding it hopeless to attack a French force now so greatly superior in numbers to his own, he adopted the tremendous, but only remaining alternative, of again leading his exhausted and diminished followers over the highest crest of the Alps, in order to rescue them from annihilation, and enable him to unite himself with the scattered fragments of the Russian army in the Grisons. He broke up from his quarters on the 5th of October. The lateness of the season, the difficulties of the passage, and the vastly superior force pressing on the heels of his dispirited soldiers, rendered this a far more hazardous enterprise than that which he had previously accomplished. The miserable path up the valley would barely admit two men abreast: along this the army painfully wound its way in single file. The difficulty of the ascent was greatly increased by a fall of snow 2 feet deep; but, as though the hardships of the way were not enough, the indefatigable French, ascending the opposite bank of the Sernft, allowed the Russians no respite from their harassing assaults. Numbers lay down, exhausted from fatigue, to perish on the snow; many, slipping down the insecure fragments of slate, and along the rocks, polished by the frost, were hurled over the precipices, and crushed in the abyss below, while the enemy's bullets were not slow in further thinning their ranks. After five days of toil, and four nights of little repose, since they were spent on the bare surface of the snow and the glaciers, where many men were frozen to death, Suwarrow crossed the ridge of Panix, between 209 7000 and 8000 ft. above the sea, and on the 10th of October gained the valley of the Rhine at Ilanz. Even on reaching the descent into the Grisons, many perished in attempting to cross the fearful chasm of the Araschka Alp. For months and months the foul birds and beasts of prey were gorged with their bodies, and the bones of many a warrior are still blanching in the crevices and ravines of the Jätzer. Thus terminated a march of 18 days' duration, perhaps the most extraordinary ever performed by an army incessantly engaged, fighting a battle almost every day, and obliged to traverse a country totally unknown, and completely destitute of resources. This remarkable retreat was accomplished with the loss of all his artillery, the greater part of the beasts of burden, and one third of his men. The Segnes pass, the best way from Glarus to Coire, ascends a minor valley running in a S. E. direction behind the village of Elm. The height of the pass above the sea is 7500 ft. It is about 15 miles from this to the first village in the Grisons valley of Segnes. 43 Flims described in Route 77. 23 COIRE, in Route 67. * Any additional information respecting routes 75, 76, 77, 78, derived from personal knowledge, would be acceptable to the editor. 210 Route 77.- Coire to Andermatt - Ilanz. side in Scotland. Thence to Ander- | the Rhine, we join it again, after a steep descent, about 3 miles beyond Lax. matt is desolate and uninteresting. The number of small castles on heights above the Rhine is remarkable; it is as much the castellated Rhine here as below Mayence. The great post-road from Coire (Route 67), up the valley of the Rhine, is followed as far as 12 Reichenau (described in Route 87), where the waters of the Vorder and Hinter-Rhein unite. Thenceforward a cart-road, of the very worst kind, is the only mode of communication up the valley of the Vorder-Rhein, and will be, most probably, for some time to come, though a new carriageroad to Dissentis is promised. The want of roads and of inns, except at Ilanz, the pothouses which supply their place being of the most inferior kind, has hitherto prevented this beautiful district being visited by travellers as much as it deserves. Quitting the high way, our cart-track strikes up the side of the hills on the 1. bank of the Rhine, to the village of Tamīns, directly over Reichenau. N. B. The road along the S. bank of the river below Ilanz, is more interesting than that on the N. At one place it crosses a fine ravine by a covered wooden bridge, 90 paces long. For some distance, along the road on the N. bank, the traveller enjoys a beautiful view up both valleys of the Rhine. The entrance of that of Hinter-Rhein, up which runs the road to the Splügen, is guarded by the castle of Rhætzuns, backed by villages and church-towers without number. Beyond Trins the road turns aside from the Rhine, and bends round a little monticule rising in the midst of the valley into a small sequestered basin, in the midst of which lies 23 Flims, a village 3360 ft. above the sea, named from the number of sources around it, ad flumina. Here the path to Glarus, by the Segnes Pass (Route 76), strikes off. After continuing some time out of sight of 33 Ilanz (in Romansch, Glion, or Ilon). (Inn: The hotel elegantly furnished, and well served). - Ilanz is the only place in the valley deserving the name of town, and is the capital of the Graue Bund, or Grey League, p. 190. Its 568 inhabitants speak the Romansch tongue, and this dialect prevails in a large portion of the valley. This place, situated on the rt. bank of the river, exhibits marks of poverty, though the country around is fertile; its walls are in a state of dilapidation. Ober Saxen, a village on the same side of the Rhine as Ilanz, and about 4 miles higher up, is German, while all the villages around it are Romansch. In its vicinity stand 4 ancient castles, now picturesque ruins, about 1 mile apart from one another. Their names are Mooreck, Schwartzenstein, Riedburg, and Axenstein. Before reaching Ober Sax, the road crosses the river, but again crosses to the 1. bank before arriving at Trons (in Rhotian, Tron)-(Inn : Casa Nuova?)-a village in a singularly beautiful situation, at a little distance from the Rhine. Its 800 inhabitants are Catholics, and speak Romansch. There are iron-works in the vicinity. Trons is chiefly remarkable, however, as the cradle of liberty among the Rhotian Alps, the Grütli of Grison history. Beneath the shade of the neighbouring forest the peasants met at the beginning of the 15th century to concert plans for liberating themselves and their children from the oppression and slavery of their feudal lords, three or four of whose castles, now in ruins, may still be seen frowning down from the neighbouring crags. Near the entrance of the village stands the decayed but venerated trunk of a Sycamore (Acer Pseudoplatanus; German, Ahorn), now probably 6 or 7 centuries old, a mere |