From old time this has been the designation of the dozen miles of the Upper Engadine below Bevers. Three-quarters of a mile down a lonely little tavern, {33} las Agnas, marks the most historic spot in the valley. Here, on the 7th of May, 1462, representatives of all the communes assembled and settled the constitution and the administrative and judicial organization of the little political unit that federated with others into the Free State of the Three Leagues, and here from time to time they long continued to meet in council. In the adjoining meadow of las Islas all men who could bear arms mustered in May, 1499, elected Thomas Planta as their bannerman, and marched down to join the forces of the Three Leagues at Zuoz, and bear their part at Calven on that bloody Easter Monday that won the independence of the land. Near by is the intermittent spring of Fontana Merla, the Merles' Well, the immemorial boundary between the two administrative divisions of the valley, sur e suot, above and below, Fontana Merla. [Illustration: THE ROSEGG GLACIER.] We then come to Ponte, with many interesting old houses, and then to Madulein, a name that is said to have no connection with Magdalen, while the etymology that derives it from _medio-lacu_ is probably little more than a pun on some far older name rooted in a forgotten tongue. The fact, however, that the derivation was current some centuries ago is interesting as suggesting that there may then have survived some strand of tradition stretching back to the time when a remnant of the lake that must once have covered this reach of the valley still existed. On a rocky spur of mountain above Madulein are the ruins {34} of Guardaval, erected in 1251 by Bishop Conrad, 'the castle lover.' Here and there homely potato-plots and patches of oats and rye give sign that the severity of the high Alpine climate is mitigating. On the left opens out the pleasant Val d'Eschia, carved by water from the glaciers that imbed the four rocky peaks of the Kesch, shown in Plate VII. Before us is Piz d'Eren, a great cone of limestone capped with snow. The valley widens and, clustering round a tall spire on a broad slope of meadow, we see the close-packed houses of Zuoz. When, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, the villages of the Upper Engadine rose from the ashes to which the devoted patriotism of their inhabitants had consigned them--a devotion that saved the whole Leagueland--Zuoz was by common consent the chief among them, and all the leading families built residences there.