“Our Modoc war is over, and soon the principal chiefs will be hung by due course of law (military), and the balance of the tribe will be dispersed among other tribes easily watched. We always have something of this sort every spring. Give my best love to Mrs. Byers, and believe me always your friend, W. T. SHERMAN.” CHAPTER X 1873 THE SOURCE OF THE RHINE--STRANGE VILLAGES THERE--A REPUBLIC FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OLD--THE “GRAY LEAGUE”--“THE LEAGUE OF THE HOUSE OF GOD”--LOUIS PHILIPPE’S HIDING PLACE--A TOUR IN THE VALLEY OF THE INN--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--REGRETS HIS CAREER SEEMS OVER. This summer we determined to see the source of the River Rhine. For all that tourists seemed to know, it was only a mist among the clouds. It was far away in the upper and unfrequented Alps. We went on foot, and found all the upper Rhine scenery ten times as grand as anything below Schaffhausen and the Falls. Except the classic scenery from Bingen to Coblenz no scene there is to be at all compared with a hundred places on the Rhine, among the Swiss Alps. What is called the German Rhine, is far less striking. It is the Swiss Rhine, far above where it flows through Lake Constance, that is truly picturesque. At Chur, we turned to the right, into the mountains, and followed up the branch known as the “Vorder Rhine.” Every morning at the sunrise, we were trudging along the way with our knapsacks and staffs, with the wildest mountain scenery all about us. We passed many ruins of castles, and numerous picturesque little villages--Reichenau, Ilianz, Trois, Disentis. We always rested a few hours in the middle of the day, slept awhile, and had simple dinners of trout and bread, with honey and wine. [Illustration: Rich Peasant’s House.--_Page 89._] Right and left the scenery is gorgeous, certainly, but this grand nature is also man’s enemy in these higher Alps. Flood and avalanche are forever threatening; the fields produce little, the villages are poor and wretched, and we ask ourselves, why do people seek such places to live in? The answer is, they can’t get away; they are too poor. Besides, here is where their ancestors lived always; why should they not live here, too, they answer. Years later, a girl from one of these places came and lived in our home as a domestic; but she was forever lamenting her mountains and her wretched village, spite of the fact that it had been three times overwhelmed by avalanches. That was the town of Selva. Near to this Selva, is the hamlet of Gesten, and there eighty-four souls were lost by an avalanche in a single night. The big grave containing them all was shown to us, outside of the village.