There  they  sit  or  lie  prone  in  their  invalid  chairs,
a  piteous  company  of  all  ages  and  nationalities,
muffled  up  in  wraps,  and  sighing  perhaps  for
the  balmy  airs  of  Egypt  and  Madeira.  No
matter,  they  have  faith  in  the  dry  air  of  the
Grisons,  and  the  longer  their  doctor  exposes
them  to  the  biting  cold  the  more  do  they  believe
in  him.  Yet  they  are  glad  enough  when  the
signal  comes  for  the  return  to  the  warm  and
lighted  interior  of  the  hotel.  Poor  people  !  one
thinks,  why  not  let  them  make  the  best  of  what
life  remains  to  them  in  the  warm  airs  of  the
south.     Many    a   consumptive   has   lived   long

279


Switzerland

enough  to  let  his  infirmity  heal  itself,  it  is  true,
and  while  there  is  Hfe  there  is  hope.
The  canton  Orisons  or  Graubunden  —  the
largest  in  Switzerland — was  the  first  to  find
foreign  gold  beneath  the  snowdrifts.  It  is  a
savage  mountainous  region  made  up  chiefly  of
long  parallel  valleys,  some  of  which  are  the
highest  in  central  Europe.  The  twenty-four
inhabitants  of  the  hamlet  of  Juf  live  at  a  height
of  close  on  seven  thousand  feet  above  the
sea.  Dense  forests  clothe  the  mountain  slopes,
watered  by  the  new-born  currents  of  the  Rhine,
the  Inn,  and  the  affluents  of  the  Adda.  In  these
savage  valleys  lingers  the  old  Romansch  tongue,
once  spoken  all  over  the  canton.  You  still  see
the  ancient  Romansch  houses  with  their  low
projecting  roofs,  their  massive  white  walls  with
deep  narrow  windows  like  the  "  loops  "  of  a
castle.  But  everywhere  now  the  German  speech
is  heard,  and  the  German's  red  roof  and  wooden
chalet  have  become  features  of  the  land.
