arovitz Is now r 0 T T nd d i Z HE rising generation know T more of geography than any ot of ctr predecessors nothing teaches geography like war more than any other this war south africa the Came Camer roona east africa the Si nattle peninsula the persian gulf armenia the dardanelles Darda nelles and all central europe have been the scenes of dramatic events in which everyone has been forced to take interest and those events have in every case been conditioned by the formation and climate of the countries in which they have occurred the world scene of warfare has become real to us through the many detailed accounts printed by the newspapers and the memory of what has thus been impressed upon us will not soon pass away nothing was further removed from tha the minds of most peacetime peace time tourists in their wanderings than to look at the countries through which they passed as likely in their own day to be ba devastated by war occasionally one becomes conscious of the existence of forts in recondite lofty positions but these he was not permitted to approach and seldom wanted to it if he crossed the brenner by railway from innsbruck Inns bruck to italy he could scarcely avoid noticing the fortifications of but why they should be there and what they were expected to attain as to all that the mere tourist thought little and cared less for no landscape in the world Is less suggestive of war than h a mountain landscape nature seems to have built up moun bains to keep hostile people apart she might have done the work a great deal better why did she leave here and there such notable gaps la in their ranges why did she spread those ranges out so widely from side to side aide and dip into them such attractive valley approaches form no racial boundary there Is hardly a mountain range in the world that does not invite men to traverse it somewhere the alps are particularly thus thua brei breached ched with the result that for all their formidable the smaller peaks of the Mari maritimes times of the graceful Cott latis ians or of recoil recon dito dauphine lne to each region there is a charm all its own and as with the peaks so with the valleys the better we come to know them the more varied do w we 0 find them we soo BOOS 5 learn to divide them into two main contrasting groups those that la iii cline northward mainly into german lands and those that bond bend south down to the rich italian plain and these lat ter are far more charming than the others are essentially different I 1 in ancient days the region north ot of the alps was mainly a dense forest south of them has always been the open fernue italian plain the wind from the north were dry and cold those from the south warm and laded with fertilizing moisture thus nature V M I 1 V A 0 wg W 51 1 Z view prom from the bleull forest appearance they have as aa often connected as sundered the peoples on either side of them they form today no racial boundary from the earliest ages the people in the north have pressed down over them and even the loftiest loft iest italian valleys on the south slope of monte hosa itself are colonized by a teutonic stock thus it happens that the italian ticino and italian an tyrol both remain under teutonic government and the frontier of the tha alps has never in fact been the political frontier of italy the alpine playground of europe takes a great deal of knowing ina in a visitors first season the g great reat snow mountains impose their emin eminence enee upon him and iche it he 5 3 likewise a climber he will have little attention to spare tor for valleys but will spend his bis wonder upon the glaciers and the high crags and tho the great phenomena atthe central mountains but when the first flush of novelty has passed from them thein the lover of the alps finds de lights no less keen at lower levels the valleys have each a character of their own arid and the mountains themselves are not all alike there are mountains built of cryst crystalline allne rock and others of lime I 1 me stones a tone 8 of different qualities and colors it is not necessarily the highest and hardest that take the firmest hold upon our affections the TL e great Matter borns and schreck cir h horne orns are always glorious clor lous but bo ao are herself imposed a different atmos phere upon these two sundered Bun dered re alons glons and though now on both sides the forests have been driven aloft alof tand and the lands suitable fur it have beert been tamed beneath the plow the essential difference abides fertile italy olimbi aloft from one side strenuous gel many from the other the very do bestle architecture proclaims the difference the italian valleys of mhd alps are old friends of the sun and of the vine bacchus and pan are there at home they seem to open to the visitor a warm heart even where the lemon cannot bloom the scent of it seems to penetrate the southern val leys always seem to draw one from the th alpine heights as those to the north nort never can you may not be able to see the mediterranean far to tl the south gouth but you know and seem to feel that it 11 Is there and thither you we ae impelled by the strange force that has drawn the men of the north southward since the days when the dorland swept down upon the aegean and long before this southward tendency it was that brought the germans over into itly italy the franks under charlemagne the Otton lans and the hohenstaufen Hohen staufen later and it Is the remnant of their con quests guests of italian soil that italy Is now seeking to rend from the grasp of the Haps burgs A glance at the map shows that tongue of hill country by nature natura italian which austria holds the west side bide of it stretching down due south from near the stelvio to the head of lake garda whence its eastern boundary slopes northeastward up to the ridge of the carnic alps within this triangle is contained one of the loveliest hill countries in the world the great snowy groups groups of Oetz thal Zill erthal arid and the tauern bauern do not belong to it they are essentially german these severe crystalline ranges but all that Is below the smiling valleys the crimsoned crim limestone peaks and walls of the dolomites the rich valleys that drain into the abige adige or in tarda garda these are italian italian in atmosphere in color colorin in vegetation in A architecture in language and sentiment and whatever else ilves gives character acierto to a land to tho the traveler it Is the dolomite mountains rather than the folk folker or any other feature that distinguish this region they are in their way good to climb but they are tar far more wonder wonderful ful to look at halt half a century ago their peaks were mostly now guns have been mounted upon points point s whose jerit first ascent may have beert been proudly chronicled within the memory ot living men mea