CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 



Meran LEAVING Vienna, our first stop was Meran, a charm- 

 'Imeuard ^^S Tcsort in the Tientino, wholly Austrian so far as 

 Stolz and I observed, but lately ceded to Italy by the 

 Treaty of Versailles in order to insure a "strategic 

 defense," a reason abhorrent to my mind. For 

 security against war, if there be any, must lie not in 

 indomitable fortresses but in the hearts of the people. 

 From Meran we went over the majestic Stelvio Pass, 

 where we saw and heard Austrian soldiers practicing 

 their machine guns on the glaciers of the Ortler. 

 Descending into Italy, we next crossed the beautiful 

 Bernina over to scenes, to me familiar, around 

 exquisite Pontresina, the heart of the Engadine. 

 There we went up Piz Languard, climbed by me 

 twenty-one years before, a superb viewpoint easy 

 of access and most repaying. Stolz walked to the 

 summit, and I halted at the end of the funiculaire, 

 for the experience of a quarter century had left me 

 stout and scant of breath as compared with the 

 Matterhornbesteiger of l88i !^ 



From the Engadine we drove down the Maloja, 

 beloved of old, to the Lake of Como. Thence, on our 

 way westward, we stopped to see the old battlefields 

 Magenta of Magenta and Novara. In Magenta the bullet 

 holes in the houses showed the course of the Austrian 

 troops driven from the bridge by the Italiaris and 

 French over the river Po and back through the city 

 streets. In an old church, in one of the basement 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter xi, pages 258-269. 



n 312 D 



