should say, of the names of visitors, abound with interesting autographs, men of science and literature, men of the church and the world, monarchs and nobles, and men whose names sound great, as well as multitudes both of simple and uncouth nomenclature, unknown to fame.

1

There is a valuable museum in a hall adjoining the stranger's refectory, where one might spend a long time with profit and delight. The collection of medals and antique coins is, very fine, and there are some fine portraits, paintings and engra vings, It is curious to see what blunders the finest artists will sometimes make in unconscious forgetfulness. There is in the museum an admirable spirited drawing, which bears the name of Brockedon, presented by him to the monks-a sketeh of the dogs and the monks rescuing a lost traveller from the The Hospice is drawn as in full sight, and yet the dogs, monks, and travellers, are plunging in the snow at the foot of an enormous pine-tree. Now there is not a tree of any kind to be seen or to be found within several miles of the Hospice. The engraving, however, is very fine. I am not sure that it is by Brockedon; I think one of the monks told me not; but, it was presented by him.

snow.

The Hospice is on the very highest point of the pass, built of stone, a very large building, capable of sheltering three hundred persons or more. Five or six hundred sometimes receive assistance in one day. One of the houses near the Hospice was erected as a place of refuge in case of fire in the main building. It is 8200 feet above the level of the sea. There are tremendous winter avalanches in consequence of the accumulation of the snow in such enormous masses as can no longer hold on to the mountains, but shoot down with a suddenness, swiftness, violence, and noise, compared by the monks to the discharge of a cannon. Sometimes the snow-drifts encircle the walls of the Hospice to the height of forty feet; but it is said that the severest cold ever recorded here was only 29 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit; sufficiently cold, to be sure, but not quite so bad as when the mercury freezes. We have known it to be 35 degrees below zero in the interior of the State of Maine; and at Bangor, one winter, it was below 40, or, rather, being

17 MONKS OF THE HOSPICE."

103

frozen, it could no longer be measured. The greatest degree of heat recorded at the Hospice has been 68 degrees. The air always has a piercing sharpness, which makes a fire délightful and necessary even at noon-day, in the month of August. The monks get their supply of wood for fuel from a forest in the Val de Ferret, about twelve miles distant, not a stick being found within two leagues of the convent.

"It is a curious fact that on account of the extreme rarity of the atmosphere at the great elevation of the Hospice, the water boils at about 187 degrees of Fahrenheit, in consequence of which it takes nearly as long again to cook meat, as it would' if the water boiled at the ordinary point of 212 degrees. The fire must be kept glowing, and the pot boiling, five hours, to cook a piece of meat, which it would have taken only three hours to get ready for the table, if the water would have wait-ed till 212. This costs fuel, so that their dish of bouilli makes the monks consume an inordinate quantity of wood in the kitchen. On the other hand, it may take less fire to boil the kettle for tea, or to make coffee, or boil an egg. As to the baked meats, we take it the oven is no slower in its work here than in the valleys; but for the business of boiling they lose 25 de grees of heat, for want of that pressure and density of the atmosphere which would keep the water quiet up to 212. Just so, some men's moral and intellectual energies evaporate, or go off in an untimely explosion, unless kept under forcible discipline and restraint.

This, therefore, is but a symbol of the importance of concentrating thought and passion in order to accomplish great things in a short time, with as little waste as possible. A man has no increase of strength after he gets to the boiling point. A man, therefore, whose energies of passion boil over, before his thoughts get powerfully, heated, may make a great noise, but he will take a long time, at an expence of much fuel, in doing what a man of concentration would accomplish in half the time with half the ado. Some men boil over at 187; other men wait till 212; others go still higher before they come to the boiling point; and the higher they go, the greater is the saving of intellectual fuel and time.

“He who would do some great thing in this short life," says Foster, speaking of the fire of Howard's benevolence, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forcès as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity." This delay in boiling is undoubtedly a great element in decision of character, as it is in tenacity and perseverance. While some men are boiling impetuously, others, at a much higher point, with far greater intensity of heat, keep quiet, manifest no turbulence whatever; but, when the proper time comes, then they act, with a power and constancy all the more effectual for their previous calmness. So it is with religious feeling: that which is deepest makes the least noise, but its principle and action is steadfast and intense. Stillest streams oft water fairest meadows; and the bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.

I believe it is some years since any persons have been lost in passing the mountain, though Brockedon says that some additions to the sepulchre are annually made. In December 1825, three domestics of the convent, together with an unfortunate traveller, of whom they had gone in search with their dogs in a stormy time, were overwhelmed with an avalanche. Only one of the dogs escaped. These humane animals rejoice in their benevolent vocation as much as the monks do in theirs... They go out with the brethren in search of travellers, having some food or cordials slung around their necks; and, being able on their four feet to cross dangerous snow-sheets, where men could not venture, they trace out the unfortunate storm victims, and minister to their sufferings, if they find them alive, or come back to tell their masters where the dead are shrouded. These melancholy duties were formerly far more frequent.

The scene of greatest interest at the Hospice, a solemn, extraordinary interest indeed, is that of the Morgue, or building where the dead bodies of lost travellers are deposited. There they are, some of them as when the breath of life departed, and the Death Angel, with his instruments of frost and snow, stiffened and embalmed them for ages. The floor is thick with nameless skulls and bones and human dust heaped in confusion. But around the wall are groups of poor sufferers in the

very position in which they were found, as rigid as marble, and in this air, by the preserving element of an eternal frost, almost as uncrumbling. There is a mother and her child, a most affecting image of suffering and love. The face of the little one remains pressed to the mother's bosom, only the back part of the skull being visible, the body enfolded in her careful arms, careful in vain, affectionate in vain, to shield her offspring from the elemental wrath of the tempest. The snow fell fast and thick, and the hurricane wound them both up in one white shroud and buried them. There is also a tall, strong man standing alone, the face dried and black, but the white, unbroken teeth firmly set and closed, grinning from the fleshless jaws it is a most awful spectacle. The face seems to look at you from the recesses of the sepulchre, as if it would tell you the story of a fearful death-struggle in the storm. There are other groups more indistinct, but these two are never to be forgotten, and the whole of these dried and frozen remnants of humanity are a terrific demonstration of the fearfulness of this mountain-pass, when the elements, let loose in fury, encounter the unhappy traveller. You look at all this through the grated window; there is just light enough to make it solemnly and distinctly visible, and to read in it a powerful record of mental and physical agony, and of maternal love in death. That little child, hiding its face in its mother's bosom, and both frozen to death;;-ore can never forget the group, nor the memento mori, nor the token of deathless love.

DESCENT INTO THE VAL D'AOSTE-ROMISH INTOLERANCE,
AND THAT OF STATE AND CHURCH.

WE leave the Hospice with regret, but it is quite too cold to remain. The view on both sides, both the Italian and the Swiss side, is very grand, though you see nothing but countless ridges of mountains. The snowy Velan is an object of great magnificence. On the Italian side, we first circle the

little lake, the centre of which is the boundary line between Savoy and the Canton Vallais, within which the Hospice stands. Then a rapid winding descent speedily brings the traveller from the undisputed domain of ice and granite first to the mosses, then the scant grass, then the mountain shrubs, then the stunted larches, then the fir forests, and last the luxuriant vineyards and chestnut verdure of the Val d'Aoste.⠀1 It were endless to enumerate the wild and beautiful windings off the route, the openings from it, the valleys of picturesque beauty which run off among the mountains, and the grandeur of the view of Mont Blanc, when you again encounter it. The first village from the Hospice is that of St. Remy, where the sen tinel of the Bureau carefully examined the contents of my knap! sack. 2nd to

Taking up my crimson guide-book, he remarked that he supposed it was a book of prayer. I told him no, but showed him my pocket epistle to the Romans. John Murray's guide! book might very well on the continent be denominated the Englishman's prayer-book, for everybody has it in his hand, morn ing, noon, and night. What does Mr. Murray' say? is the question that decides everything on the road. At the inns,90 when you come down to breakfast in the morning, besides a cup of coffee, an egg, and a roll, your traveller has his Murray at his plate, open at the day's route before him. If he is ale genuine Irishman, you may expect him to take a bite at it, in stead of his bread. And when, fatigued, you sit down at tea” in the evening, there is John Murray again in his scarlet binding. The book looked very like a mass-book to the sentinel, and certainly, it being always the first thing that met his sight!! in every pocket, trunk, or knapsack, if he made the same mis take with every English traveller that crossed the mountain that summer that he did with me, he must have thought the English a wonderfully devout people.

But perhaps, if I had told him it was my prayer-book or Bible, he would have taken it away from me. For this was the very place where an English gentleman, whom I afterwards met at Geneva, travelling with his daughter, had their English Bible and prayer-book both taken from them, in obedience to