ver, is perfectly understood in the upper part of that province,
where they use no other version. The other dialect, which is the
language of the Grey, or Upper. League, is distinguished from the former
by the name of _Cialover_:[A] and I must here observe, that in the very
centre, and most inaccessible parts of this latter district, there are
some villages situated in the narrow valleys, called Rheinwald,
Cepina,[B] &c. in which a third language is spoken, more similar to the
German than to either of the above idioms, although they be neither
contiguous, nor have any great intercourse with the parts where the
German is used.

It being impossible to form any idea of the origin and progress of a
language, without attending to the revolutions that may have contributed
to its formation and subsequent variations; and this being particularly
the case in the present instance, wherein no series of documents is
extant to guide us in our researches; I shall briefly recapitulate the
principal events which may have affected the language of the Grisons, as
I find them related by authors of approved veracity.[C]

Ambigatus, the first king of the Celtic Gaul upon record, who[D] about
400[E] years before Christ, governed all the country situated between
the Alps and the Pyrenaean mountains, sent out two formidable armies
under the command of one of his nephews; one of whom, named Segovisius,
forced his way into the heart of Germany: and the other, Bellovisius,
having passed the Alps, penetrated into Italy as far as the settlements
of the Tuscans, which at that time extended over the greatest part of
the country now called Lombardy. These, and several other swarms of
invaders whom the successes of the former soon after attracted, having
totally subdued that country, built Milan, Verona, Brescia, and several
other considerable towns, and governed with such tyrannic sway,
especially over the nobility, whose riches they coveted and sought by
every means to extort from them, that most of the principal families,
joining under the conduct of Rhaetus[F], one of the most distinguished
personages among them, retired with the best part of their effects and
attendants among the steepest mountains of the Alps, near the sources of
the Rhine, into the district which is now called the Grey League.

The motive of their flight, their civil deportment, and perhaps more so,
the wealth they brought with them, procured them a favourable reception
from th