is an
exaggeration--the mere babbling of an ingrate.

The Upper Engadine Valley, in which Saint Moritz is situated, has, as
well as the Baths, its detractors and its admirers. This narrow valley,
throughout whose whole length flows the Inn, shut in by glacier-capped
mountains, whose slopes are covered with spruce, pine, and larch trees,
lies at an altitude of some five thousand feet above the level of the
sea. It often snows there in the month of August, but spring and early
summer in the locality are delightful; and dotted about are numerous
little romantic green lakes, glittering like emeralds in the sunshine.
Those who slander these by comparing them to wash-bowls and cisterns,
are simply troubled with the spleen, a malady which neither iron,
iodine, nor yet sulphur, can cure.

One thing these discontented folks cannot deny, and that is that it
would be difficult, not to say impossible, to find anywhere in the
mountains more flowery and highly perfumed mossy banks than those of
the Engadine. We do not make this assertion because of the rhododendrons
that abound on the borders of the lakes: we are not fond of this showy,
pretentious shrub, whose flowers look as if they were moulded in wax
for the decoration of some altar; but is it not delightful to walk on a
greensward, almost black with rich satyrion and vanilla? And what
would you think of a wealth of gentians, large and small; great yellow
arnicas; beautiful Martagon lilies; and St.-Bruno lilies; of every
variety of daphne; of androsace, with its rose-coloured clusters; of the
flame-coloured orchis; of saxifrage; of great, velvety campanulas; of
pretty violet asters, wrapped in little, cravat-like tufting, to protect
them from the cold? Besides, near the runnels, following whose borders
the cattle have tracked out graded paths, there grows that species of
immortelle called _Edelweiss_, an object of covetousness to every guest
at the Baths. Higher up, near the glacier approach, may be found the
white heart's-ease, the anemone, and the glacial ranunculus (spearwort);
higher still, often buried beneath the snow, flourishes that charming
little lilac flower, delicately cut, sensitive, quivering, as it were,
with a cold, known as the soldanella. To scrape away the snow and find
beneath it a flower! Are there often made such delightful discoveries in
life?

Having said thus much, we must admit that the Rue de Saint Moritz does
not resemble the Rue de la Paix of Pari