Whoever, journeying southward from Coire, passes through the Via Mala, thence through the village of Andeer, and thence turns to the left, following a mountain path up the torrent of the Aversa, will soon lose himself in the solitudes of the savage valley of Ferrera. Thither Morton made his way; but not by so smooth an access. Ignorant of the country, and guided chiefly by the sun, he had pushed blindly forward by paths best known to the chamois and those who chase them. His best hope had been to meet some of his travelling countrymen, from whom he could gain help. To this end he had once and again approached the highways, and as often some real or seeming danger had driven him back to the mountains. For a day or more, the food he had taken from the inn served to support him. He had flung away Max's pistol, but still had his own. It served him to kindle a fire; and by loading it with gravel, in place of shot, he contrived to kill thrushes and other small birds. Their nests, too, full at this time of eggs and young, supplied a meagre resource; and once, being hard pressed, he made a Gallic banquet on a party of serenaders who were croaking and trilling their evening concert about the edge of a shallow pool. Frogs have found warm eulogists; but never did the art of Paris or Bologna transmute those delectable reptiles into so savory a repast as did the famine-sharpened appetite of Morton. Upon fare like this, he wandered on, till he stumbled upon the valley of Ferrera. He had found at last an asylum wild enough to content the most pious of eremites, or the most desperate of bandits. Below he saw the raging water foaming along the depths of its black ravine; above--the stupendous ramparts that walled the valley in--cliffs, along whose giddy verge the firs were dwindled to feathers. Cascades spouted from their tops, scattering to mist and nothingness long before their measureless leap was done. The tribute drawn from the clouds the lavish mountain flung back to the clouds again. Rocks were piled on rocks, ruin on ruin, and, high over all, the glaciers of the Splugen shone like cliffs of silver. Take a savage from his woods or his prairies, and, school him as you will, the ingrained savage will still declare itself. Take the most polished of mankind, turn him into the wilderness, and forthwith the dormant savage begins to appear. Hunt him with enemies, gnaw him with hunger, beat him with wind and rain, and observe the result; how the delicate tissues of civilization are blown away, how rude passions start into life, how his bodily cravings grow clamorous and importunate, how he grows reckless of his own blood and the blood of others. "Men are as the times." Young Lovelace of the hussars singing a duet at Lady Belgrave's _soiree_, would hardly know himself, hewing down Russian artillerymen at Balaklava.