CLEAR WATERS 



served in the hotel. However, I have it duly entered 

 in my journal. July 1st. Rhine, one trout. Settled in 

 the Engadine for most of the ensuing month, between 

 the mountain climbs or on wet days, of which last I 

 remember there was a fair sprinkling, I scoured the 

 lakes and streams over what is now the happy hunting- 

 ground, winter and summer, of thousands of tourists. 

 In those days it had only been partially discovered. 

 The hotels were few, small, and undeniably rough. 

 A sizeable caravanserai at St. Moritz alone suggested 

 any flavour of the outer world. But, large or small, 

 they seemed to me most dreary and forlorn, though I 

 probably troubled their interior as little perhaps as 

 any one. Though neither an epicure nor a sybarite 

 the food struck even me as unpalatable and painfully 

 monotonous. My seniors, who were old habitues, 

 came prepared to rough it and to depend largely on 

 bread, honey, stewed fruit, and boiled trout. I shared, 

 I am afraid, the schoolboy prejudice of that day for 

 a beef and beer diet. We were regaled to be sure 

 with portions of what my experienced elders alluded 

 to with holiday levity as goat, but I did not myself 

 see any fun in it. But the outdoor fascinations of 

 course far outweighed the indoor shortcomings of the 

 then primitive Engadine. The landlord seemed to 

 be on terms of old acquaintance with the few English 

 who then forgathered here, most of them university 

 dons or the like, all of whom seemed to know personally 

 one or other of our party. We were at Pontresina 

 mostly, and neither there nor anywhere else except 

 at the St. Moritz hotel could there have been accom- 

 modation for very many visitors. What the epicu- 



38 



