Chiavenna is an Italian and old Roman village town about 1100 feet above the level of the sea, very picturesquely buried among the bluff high mountains which closely hem it in on every side, and upon the heights of some of which patches of snow were visible in many places. It lies at the foot of the Splugen Pass, and on the river Maira, which, crossed by a good stone bridge, pours a torrent of water down from the snowy heights. We had time, both before dinner and after, to stroll about and see the little that was to be seen. Chiavenna is celebrated for its beer, and we thought it our duty to try it as the wine of the country, expecting to get it in perfection, but found it very flat. We had had it better at Bellaggio. * * * * * Soon after seven o’clock the following morning, we left the hotel, and had three hours of a most laborious ascent to Campo Dolcino, only eight miles distant. The three horses with which we started, afterwards supplemented by a fourth, toiled up innumerable zigzags, getting higher and higher at every turn, but making very little onward progress; so that generally some of us would get out of the carriage, and by climbing up at the end of one zigzag to the end of the next, meet its slow arrival there. The distant views as we proceeded were fine, and improved the higher we mounted; while in the narrow valley beneath,—farther and farther beneath as we got higher and higher,—the river was seen wending its foamy course, augmented at little intervals by every fresh rivulet which rushed to embrace it from the lovely waterfalls descending in long, silver–grey, horsetail streams from the mountains opposite, in bright white contrast with the brown rocks over which they dashed and fell. There is not much to be seen at Campo Dolcino. It is a small village in a bleak–looking district; but, stopping for three hours to rest the horses, look about, and obtain lunch at the little inn, we proceeded on our way up the pass. Soon afterwards we reached the Madesimo waterfall, which is near to the road; and all turned out to see this famous cascade from a small stone gallery above it, whence the water is observed rolling over and tumbling and sinking in one grand heap 700 feet down, scattering, by the mere force of the descent, into a cloud of spray below. Little by little we continued ascending, passing in the way through three long tunnels (one of them 1530 feet in length), built to protect from the avalanches, which at certain seasons would otherwise bury the road; and at last we reached the region of perpetual snow, where the inaccessible Alpine roses bloom, and amidst blue gentians springing from the banks on the roadside. Mile after mile we passed along the road cut through the snow, not pure or clean, standing consolidated on each side, like the Red Sea when the Israelites passed over its channel and the waters were divided and became ‘a wall unto them on their right hand and on