In the Lower Engadine the valley of the Inn seldom widens into a flat floor as at Zernez. On the right it for the most part rises precipitously, giving little footing for building and cultivation. Thus habitation has always been mainly on the sunny slopes and terraces that look south on the left. At Lavin, two miles below Susch, walkers can take the old road that runs on this side, high above the new, by the shells and towers of old castles, and commanding lovely views. Lavin, Guarda, and Ardez are known as the Etruscan villages; I believe they have not an even colourable claim to the appellation, which, however, is of old date, and has given rise to much ingenious diversion in providing etymologies for place-names in the neighbourhood. The villages, however, have an idyllic charm from their quaint old houses and lovely situation that has no need to borrow interest from factitious history or philology. Guarda, on an open terrace at the entrance to Val Tuoi, is perhaps the most frequented as a summer resort. Its neighbourhood affords rambles to suit all tastes, from mountaineering to dawdling, with special attractions in Val Tuoi for the botanic dawdler. At Ftan, delightfully placed on an undulating terrace some 1,500 feet above the Inn, we enter a region impregnated with mineral waters and gases of {41} singular potency, where thousands of sufferers from various ills that flesh is heir to are yearly gathered. It is claimed that no other district in Europe is so rich in therapeutic waters. The springs, which issue with a temperature a little over 60° F., are all strongly acidulated, and though varying a good deal in their constituents and in the proportions in which they are mixed, fall broadly into two classes: Glauber's salts (sulphate, carbonate, and chloride of sodium) and chalybeate or iron. They are good for both drinking and bathing; the large proportion of carbonic acid gas with which they are charged is said to render them peculiarly efficacious in baths. An interesting evidence of the plutonic character of the neighbourhood are the mofette, vents in the earth from which carbonic acid gas issues in considerable quantity. One in a field near Scuol, in which unwary birds, lizards, and insects are frequently done to death, has been estimated to discharge eleven million litres a day. The centres of the little invalid world are the Kurhaus and Trinkhalle, emparadised in beautiful gardens on the left and right banks of the Inn respectively, and connected by a roofed bridge. Both sides of the valley bristle with hotels for the accommodation of patients: Scuol on an open terrace on the left with magnificent views, and Vulpera ensconced among woods and meadows on the right. {42}