156 
On arriving in Davos, after an absence of 11 years, I 
naturally found it much changed, and among the first 
things I saw was a bank and gas-works, and then I felt the 
simplicity of the Davos I had known was passed away, and 
afterwards found that with that simplicity some of the 
advantages of the place had also disappeared, for in the 17 
years since the place was first tried it has lived a very spend- 
thrift youth, and instead of a simple mountain village with 
two moderate sized hotels, as I first knew it, it is now an 
indifferently built small town with many of the hotels in 
most unsatisfactory positions, and none have chosen as good 
a one as the first hotel which was built for Swiss visitors, 
and almost a climax has been reached by building a German 
hospital in one of the most unfavourable places. 
When I came here for the first time the number of visitors 
was much larger in the summer than in the winter, whereas 
it is now principally a winter resort. But this was to be 
expected, for those who took an interest in it at first saw 
that it had advantages in winter not possessed by other 
places, whereas the summer climate is similar to a large 
number of Alpine stations ; but this change from a summer 
to a winter resort is a disadvantage to those who come for 
the winter, for now all the hotels are full in this season, 
whereas 11 years ago, when there were only two, these were 
filled in the summer ; but in the winter, when the patients 
are more indoors there was more space and a purer air was 
breathed than is now the case, as the hotels were then only 
half or a third full. 
In the winter, 1870-71, there were 55 invalids with a few 
friends accompanying them, whereas this winter the number 
of visitors has been about 1,000, which means an addition of 
considerably more than two thousand living in the valley 
since I first knew it, and it is therefore now necessary to see 
what the effect of this change is likely to be ; but before 
going into that T may say that the Swiss issued a commis- 
