Lake Silvaplana, Near St. Moritz.

The Engadine In Winter.

Coasting At St. Moritz.

" Skee-Ing".

Approaching A Curve.

The Chain Of Lakes Between St Moritz And Maloya.

I should, myself, select as a more sympathetic halting place than St. Moritz some village further up the valley, near one of the enchanting lakes which link themselves like gems of malachite from St. Moritz, through Sils and Silvaplana to Maloya. The music in the names of these two latter places is suggestive of their peace and beauty; and, though the scenery is not so grand as in some parts of Switzerland, it would be difficult anywhere in the world to find more exquisite effects of coloring than can be seen here in the early morning and especially toward sunset. Maloya, in particular, - a favorite resort of the late Professor Huxley, - has a unique position at the head of the sweet chain of lakes, and hence commands a charming view of that long section of the Engadine. While, since it also stands on what might well be called the brink of Italy, one looks thence down upon a marvelously steep and picturesque descent into the Val Bregaglia, on the way to Chiavenna and Lake Como.

For me, however, the fairest jewel of the Engadine is Pon-tresina. Reached by an hour's drive, and even by a shorter walk across the fields, from St. Moritz, this wonderfully situated village lies at the foot of the Bernina Pass to Italy. Here one at last comes face to face with splendid snow-clad peaks and glaciers, toward which the genuine nature lover - especially if the tinsel screen of artificial life has for a time concealed from him the actual universe - turns, like a long-imprisoned flower, to the light and air. The settlement itself consists of little save a street of shops and admirably kept hotels; but from the mountain terrace on which these are built, nearly six thousand feet above the sea, one looks off on a prospect unsurpassed, and rarely equaled, in the whole of Switzerland. Before it surge, like monster billows luminous with foam, the monarchs of the great Bernina group, straight to whose frozen heart extend two narrow valleys, which serve as exits for the milk-white streams that flow forever from its seas of ice. One of the latter, called the Roseg glacier, lies directly opposite Pontresina; and its resplendent, ice-enameled surface, closing the long perspective of a valley lined with lordly mountains and black-bearded forests, is one of the finest objects in the Alpine world. Above it, set sublimely in the vaulted blue, expands the dazzling rampart of eternal frost which gives the glacier birth; and the broad, frozen mass that steals down inch by inch from that exhaustless treasury of welded snows bears more resemblance to a moving river than is usual with glaciers, so grandly does its stately form sweep round the flanks of the huge mountains which define its course. Forth from the sea-green caverns at its base issues a torrent whose bright, sinuous thread, twisting and turning 'on the valley's verdant floor, suggests a zigzag flash of lightning photographed upon a film six miles in length. At last, so close to the hotel that one can toss a pebble from his window to its waves, the Roseg's river joins another stream, which has with no less eagerness been hurrying down a neighboring canyon to the rendezvous; and, thus united, both rush recklessly to-swell the volume of the Inn, and journey to the outer world. But visitors to Pontresina need not gaze upon these Alpine glories merely from a distance. Although a favorite starting point for such excursions as require strength of limb and nerves of steel, this also is a place where the less vigorous and ambitious drive or walk with ease through fragrant forests to romantic glens, sweet, flower-gemmed meadows, foaming waterfalls, and even to the bases of the glaciers. I thought that nothing could surpass at Pontresina the tender beauty of the alpen glow, when, far above the twilight pallor of the glacier, the snow-wall burned with yellow fire, deepening into rose. But still more marvelous was the scene when silvered by the harvest moon. I stood then on my balcony enthralled. No sound was audible save the wordless music 01 the river and the murmur of the nightwind stealing through the trees. The glistening ribbon of the ice-born streamlet seemed the ghostly path of spirit pilgrims to the gates of some celestial temple, whose swelling domes and lofty towers looked in the moonlight as if made of purest alabaster, like the Taj Mahal.