Very different is the remote Engadine group, remarkable for the high level and broad expanse of the floor of its chief valley, where lake beyond lake reflects the summer sunshine and carries the white curtain of winter on its level frozen surface. A region, this, of fine forests and large expanses of rich grazing grounds, of picturesque torrents and smiling flower-strewn slopes. Its snowy group is little more than an appendage of minor importance to the general scenic attractions of the district. Two fine mountain cirques, defining the basins of two picturesque glaciers, are its dominant features, and in each cirque one peak shines forth pre-eminent. The scenery of these cirques, however, is not of any special character that calls for mention as distinguishing it from the scenery of the other great Alpine groups. The _note_ of the Engadine is not sounded there, but rather in the wide, lake-strewn valley itself, where the snow-crests count mainly as the silvery embellishment of its frame.
[Illustration: 23. ASCONIA--ON LAGO MAGGIORE.]
Climbers who have spent a season or two in each of these five groups may think that they know the Alps, but they will be greatly mistaken. Most of them, indeed, will admit that they cannot afford to neglect the Dolomites, and will at least intend to spend a season amongst them. From a scrambling point of view, if they are rock-climbers, they will be well rewarded, for Dolomite rock-climbing is a thing apart. Dolomite scenery is even more truly unique. Less grand than that of the great mountain groups, it has a distinction all its own. There is nothing forbidding about the precipitance of its cliffs and summits. Their relative lightness of tint and the warm suffusion of the sun-pervaded atmosphere that so frequently envelops them, makes their elevated parts seem almost to float in the sky. The visible traces of the horizontal bedding of the rocks that compose them render the effect of even their slenderest pinnacles less aspiring than that of the flaked and tilted slaty-crystalline spires of older and more rugged formations. Some of the sentiment of Italy hangs about the Dolomites. The airs that are drifted over them seem steeped in Italian colour, even as their names re-echo the music of the Italian tongue. The valleys between them soon dip into the level of chestnut and vine ere yet they forsake the mountains. The chalets are pregnant with suggestions of Italy, and the inhabitants possess more of Italian grace than of Swiss ruggedness. It is, however, colour, and especially atmospheric colour, that the mention of the Dolomites first calls to the mind of the votaries of those hills and valleys. Who that has beheld dawn or sunset on Cristallo or Rosengarten can forget the glorious display of rosy lights and purple shadows? The mountain forms are sometimes fine, oftener picturesque (as Titian knew). They have the rare merit of seeming to group into the happiest of combinations and contrasts as though by exceptional good luck; but the luck is of such frequent recurrence that instead of being an exception it must be counted the rule. In the presence of Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn it is natural to adore. The Dolomites men love.