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their funds were in a flourishing condition; that Buonaparte rather impoverished than enriched them. It was true that he had assisted them with donations, but his claims upon their funds had exceeded his benefits; that they had had forty men quartered upon them for months together, and 60,000 had passed in one season, and all these had been assisted. Their funds, he said, from the facilities which peace gave to travelling, were now increasing, because visitors to the convent, who can afford it, are usually donors.

The monks are of the order of St. Augustine, and the distinguishing badge of that order is a white slit band passed round the neck, the ends before and behind being tucked into the girdle. The dress is a black cloth robe, which reaches nearly to the ankle, buttoned from top to bottom; a black conical cap, with a tuft at the top, completes a costume which is gentlemanly and becoming.

Travellers who wish to stay at the hospice for a few days, must do it with leave of the principal. It is un derstood that the object of the establishment is only to assist the passing traveller; but a stay of some days for scientific research, or excursion in the neighbouring mountains is readily acceded to. One of the brethren has twice ascended the Mont Velan, and made excursions across the glaciers which divide the Combin and the Velan, and separate the Val Pellina from the Val d'Orsey.

"The scene from the western end of the hospice, looking towards Italy, is sterile and dreary; patches of snow are seen on the sides of the mountains, which sweep down to the lake; and the Pain de Sucre, a pinnacled mountain on the other side of the Vacherie, with its rocks and snows, adds to its wildness and desolation.

"A column opposite to the middle of the water, marks the boundary of Piedmont and the Vallais ; above,

Hospice.

and beyond it, is the little plain of Jupiter, where a temple formerly stood, and from which a Roman road led down on the Piedmontese side of the pass. This road may be easily traced in the hewn rock, and the remains of a massive pavement; but not a vestige of the temple is left above the surface.

"The period of the foundation of the temple of Jupiter, which was formerly on the summit, is unknown; but many of the bronze votive tablets, which have been found in its ruins, appear to be of great antiquity; they were placed in the temple and on the altars by travellers, in gratitude for escape from perils * in their journey across the Alps; some are inscribed to Jupiter, some to the god Penninus. This difference probably arose from the nation of the devotee; for when the Romans became acquainted with this pass, the worship of Jupiter for that of Penninus was a change only in name and Penninus was preserved with that of Jupiter long after the Romans had extended their conquests beyond these Alps. The religion, if not the temple, had long been established upon these heights; from the fragments, however, which have been found of the temple, it appears to have been a Roman work of a time probably not earlier than that of Augustus. period of the substitution of a military column for the statue of Jupiter, under the younger Constantine, in the year 339, was probably not that of the destruction of the temple; for medals of the children of Theodosius, fifty years later, have been found there. It has been conjectured by Chrêtien de Loges, in his "Essais Historiques sur le Mont Saint Bernard," that it was destroyed by the Huns and Vandals during their ravages; for it

The

* A custom which is continued in the Roman Catholic Church, as every traveller in France, Italy, and Catholic Switzerland may have noticed.

was not in existence when the Lombards passed the Alps in 574.

The name of this mountain, or rather of this range of the Pennine Alps, is generally admitted to be of Celtic origin, from pen or penn, a height (this term is still preserved in Cornwall and Wales as Pendennis, Penmaenmawr), and not from the Pœni, who crossed the Alps with Hannibal. The territories of the Veragi extended to the summit of this pass, which was the barrier between them and the Salassi, a people of the Val d'Aosta. On this mountain, Livy states that the Veragri worshipped a god of the Alps, Penninus, or Jupiter Penninus, and one of the earliest names for this passage of the Alps, was Mons Jovis, or Mons Jovis Penninus; this was gallicised into Mont Joux, by which it was generally known before it acquired that of St. Bernard.

"The first foundation of the hospice has been attributed by some to Louis the Debonnaire, by others to Charlemagne, whose uncle Bernard, an illegitimate son of Charles Martel, led a division of the invading army of Charlemagne over the Great St. Bernard when he went to attack Lombardy. The present name of the pass, Saussure supposes, might have been derived from this Bernard; but there was another of the name, an illegitimate son of Pepin, to whom Charlemagne left the kingdom of Italy. To him may rather be attributed the original establishment of the hospice, from the interest which he would have in preserving the communication with Gaul by this passage of the Alps, and with it have given his name, for there is historical evidence that a monastery existed on the Great St. Bernard before the year 851; for Simler mentions, that Hartmann, abbé and almoner of Mont Joux, who was made at that time bishop of Lausanne, had been chief of the monastery. De Rivaz men

tions even an earlier abbé of this convent, Vultgare, in 832; and the annals of Bertin state, that Lothaire, the second king of Lorraine, in 859, made a treaty with his brother, the emperor Louis II., by which he ceded to him Geneva, Lausanne, and Sion, but reserved particularly L'Hospital de St. Bernard, which proves, says Saussure, the importance of this passage, and the name which it bore. But its history at this period is obscure, because in the year 390, it was devastated by Arnaud, who destroyed the monuments and records.

"The present hospice was founded in 962, by Bernard, who was born of a noble family of Savoy, at the château of Menthon, on the lake of Annecy. A determination at an early age to devote himself to an ecclesiastical life, induced him to desert his home and go to Aosta, of which city he afterwards became archdeacon. A coincidence of his name with that of the monastery probably influenced his determination to re-establish the hospice on Mont Joux, of which he became the chief. He founded at nearly the same time the hospice on the Little St. Bernard, and gave to them the name, and placed them under the protection of his favourite saint, Nicolas de Myre, as tutelary patron of these establishments. By degrees the name of the devotee was joined to that of the saint, and after the canonisation of Bernard, his name superseded that of all others, and has continued attached to the hospice since 1123. The attempt of Constantine to destroy the worship of Jupiter had not entirely succeeded; but St. Bernard rooted out the remains of paganism, and founded an establishment for active benevolence, to which thousands have been indebted. He died in 1008, after having governed the convent upwards of 40 years. For some time after the death of St. Bernard, the hospice was ex

posed to frequent outrages from barbarians who traversed the mountains; and its records of the 11th century present a succession of calamities. The Saracens overran the country, carrying fire and sword into the Alpine valleys; the monastery of Mont Joux was burnt, and its ruins became a station of brigands, who plundered or exacted an exorbitant payment from all passengers through a barrier which they established at the southwest extremity of the lake. The Normans having determined to expel these marauders, broke down the barriers and killed the guard. Still outrages continued; and Canute, king of England and Denmark, among others, complained to the pope and the emperor of the horrors and violence committed in the Alps upon his subjects going on pilgrimages to Rome, who seldom ventured to traverse these mountains unless in companies of 400 or 500. His complaints were regarded; the tolls of the passage were abolished; and Canute, in consequence, wrote to his bishops and prelates, informing them that he had secured the safety of the pilgrims in the route of the Pennine Alps. The brigands were driven out, good order succeeded to outrage, and the convent was re-established.

"In the contests of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa with pope Alexander III., and Humbert, count of Maurienne, diplomas of protection were given by them to the convent, for the security of persons and property belonging to the monastery. It was one of the very few objects in which emperors, sovereign pontiffs, and other distinguished persons, disputed the glory of fostering and protecting a foundation so important to humanity. It soon acquired great celebrity and opulence. As early as 1177, it had, in various dioceses, 88 benefices, in priories, cures, châteaux, and farms; it had lands in Sicily, in

Hospice.

Flanders, and in England. Its climax of riches and importance was in 1480, when it possessed 98 cures alone. Subsequently, however, the reformation, political changes in the states, loss of distant property, disputes with the popes, with the neighbouring states, and with each other, drove the monks of St. Bernard to seek even eleemosynary assistance. The very land upon which their noble duties are performed has been the subject of disputes between the neighbouring states. Sardinia claimed it as within a frontier extending to the bridge of Nudri, on the northern side; but the Vallaisans established a claim to it as within the diocese of Sion, by bulls of the popes from Leo IX. to Benoit XIV. The hospice, therefore, stands within the canton of the Vallais; but its authority extends only to the middle of the lake, on the borders of which a column is fixed as a line of demarcation; and the excellent brethren of St. Bernard had not only all their property within the state of Sardinia taken from them, but they were actually taxed by this state for the use which they made of the summer pasturage of the Vacherie. Very little property in land still belongs to the hospice; a vineyard at Clarens, and a farm at Roche, in the Pays de Vaud, are the principal: their resources are small, and in aid of them collections are regularly made in the Swiss cantons; but this has been sometimes abused by impostors, who have collected as the agents of the hospice.". Brockedon's Passes of the Alps.

On leaving the hospice to descend to the Val d'Aosta, the path skirts the lake, and passes between it and the Place de Jupiter. A little beyond the end of the lake, after passing through a short defile, the scene opens towards Italy, into the vast basin of the Vacherie, where the cows of the convent are pastured. The road turns ab

ruptly to the right, and sweeps round the basin to descend gradually to the plain below. A short cut downward

is always taken by an active mountaineer, and is generally safe to the less practised traveller, but let him beware of short cuts in the ascent; in the former case the course is obvious, and the path is generally traceable, but in an ascent all is concealed in the rugged and broken ground above, and the unwary traveller is decoyed into danger before he is aware of its extent.

The view on first looking out upon the Vacherie, from the gorge in the Mont Mort, is very fine, the mountains on the opposite side being sublime in form and elevation; the most striking in the scene being the Pain de Sucre, celebrated by Saussure.

At the lower end of the Vacherie, the path winds down by a series of zigzags, and thence the descent is rapid to St. Remy, a dreary little village, but where there is now an excellent inn. Here return chars to Aosta may generally be obtained for 10 francs. Travellers who leave Aosta to visit the hospice, in a char for St. Remy, and intend to return, cause it to wait for them there for four or six hours, and pay 20 francs for the char for the day, with a buono-mano to the postilion. But it generally happens that the traveller crosses the mountain, in which case he pays from 12 to 14 francs for the char, and the postillion waits till the evening for customers descending from the Great St. Bernard, and it is seldom that they are disappointed in a fare.

From St. Remy the road descends, with little interest in the scenery, to St. Oyen, where the Piedmontese custom-house is placed, and where the passports are examined. These require great regularity, or the permission to pass is withheld. Beyond St. Oyen, at Etroubles, another examination takes place. The Piedmontese officers are usually very courSwitz.

| teous, an advantage which the good temper of the traveller is sure to obtain.

At Etroubles, the St. Bernard branch of the Buttier is crossed, and the road descends to the village of Gignod, where the vegetation begins to luxuriate, and the Italian side of the mountain is felt and seen. Here there is a fine peep into the Val Pellina. From Gignod to the city of Aosta, the richness of the scenery is constantly increasing. Trellised vines and Indian corn mark the approach to the Val d'Aosta; and the first view of the city and the valley, in the descent from the St. Bernard, where the background is filled with the magnificent forms and snowy summits of the mountains above the Val de Cogne, is, perhaps, one of the finest in the Alps.

From St. Branchier (Route 108.), a good mule track leads up the valley of Bagnes, which is very fertile, to Lourtier, passing through many villages, especially those of Chable and Morgnes.

The valley is narrow, abounding in gorges, and offering many fine scenes to the pencil of the traveller. Above Lourtier this character becomes more striking, and the pass increases in difficulty to Mauvoisin, a hamlet not far below the glaciers of Getroz. The descent of these glaciers from the Mont Pleureur was the cause of the interruption of the waters of the Drance, which formed a lake and burst its bounds in 1595, carrying off in its destructive course