ordinary adventures. He himself perished about the year 1816, in an attempt to convey a poor traveller to his anxious family. The Piedmontese courier arrived at Saint Bernard in a very stormy season, labouring to make his way to the little village of Saint Pierre, in the valley, where his wife and children dwelt. It was in vain that the monks endeavoured to check his resolution to reach his family. They at last gave him two guides, each of whom was accompanied by a dog, of which one was the remarkable animal whose services had been so valuable to mankind. Descending from the convent, they were in an instant overwhelmed by two avalanches, which came thundering down. We scarcely know whether to regard it as deepening the melancholy catastrophe of this domestic tragedy, that the very same fatal calamity overtook the family of the poor courier, who were toiling up the mountain in the hope of obtaining news of their expected parent. They all perished.

Captain T. Brown, of Edinburgh, in his very interesting Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Dogs,' has related an affecting story, which the reader will probably be best pleased to see in his own words. 'A German almanack,' he says, 'contains some details concerning a dog, named Barry, one of the predecessors of those which lately perished

amid the snow of the Great Saint Bernard. This intelligent animal served the hospital of that mountain for the space of twelve years, during which time he saved the lives of forty individuals. His zeal was indefatigable. Whenever the mountain was enveloped in fogs and snow, he set out in search of lost travellers. He was accustomed to run barking until he lost his breath, and would frequently venture on the most perilous places. When he found his strength was insufficient to draw from the snow a traveller benumbed with cold, he would run back to the hospital in search of the monks. One day, this interesting animal found a child in a frozen state, between the bridge of Dronaz and the ice-house of Balsora; he immediately began to lick him, and having succeeded in restoring animation, induced the child to tie himself round his body and in this way he carried the poor little creature as if in triumph to the hospital.' There is a French engraving of this incident, the inscription beneath which adds the distressing information, that the boy's mother had been destroyed by an avalanche which spared her son. 'When old age deprived Barry of strength, the prior of the convent pensioned him at Berne. He is now dead, and his skin stuffed, and deposited in the museum of that town, with the little flask or vial in which he carried a reviving

cordial for the distressed travellers, suspended from his neck.'

The captain records another anecdote, which I shall somewhat compress, of one of these heroic and discerning quadrupeds, who appears to have literally understood his master's words, and even zealously to have adopted his resentful feelings. This dog was in the service of the Count de Monte Veccios, a veteran officer whom the republic of Venice had neglected, and who, having to request a favour of his superior in command, general Morosini, waited upon him on the morning when, by appointment, he expected the doge to partake of an elegant and expensive collation, the preparations for which were then on the table. The favour was ungraciously refused: and as the count retired from his audience in dudgeon, he patted his dog and said, in the Italian language, "You see, my friend, how I am treated." As soon afterwards as the dog observed his master to be thoroughly engaged in conversation, he took the opportunity of stealing back to the saloon of the haughty general, and, eluding observation, seized hold of a golden tassel at one of the corners of a superb table-cloth; ran forcibly backward, and drew it after him, till the ground was bestrewed with battered plate, and broken porcelain, glasses and confections.

Sometimes the members or domestics of the convent of Saint Bernard have fatally suffered in their efforts to save others. On the 17th of December 1825, three of these domestics with two dogs descended to the vacherie on the Piedmontese side of the mountain, and were returning with a traveller, when an avalanche overwhelmed them. All perished except one of the dogs, which escaped by its prodigious strength, after having been thrown over and over. Of those who fatally suffered, none were found until the snow of the avalanche had melted in the ensuing summer, when the first was discovered on the 4th of June, and the last on the 7th of July. One of these unfortunates was Victor, a fine old domestic, whom Mr Brockedon, from whom we quote this anecdote, well remembers in his first visit to the convent in 1824.

The avalanche, which overwhelmed poor Victor and his unfortunate companions, descended from Mont Mort. It was down those very beds of snow-much more extensive in May (the season of his passage) than at other times of the year-that Napoleon slid with his soldiers; boldly following the example of some of his troops, and encouraging the army which had encountered so much difficulty and danger in its march across these Alps, from the 13th to the 20th of

May 1800, when such an attempt was fraught with peculiar danger, from the exposure of the army to the frequent avalanches of the spring season. The passage of his army, under such circumstances, with its artillery and materiel, is one of the most stupendous military events on record. Under the direction of general Marmont, who commanded the artillery, and Gassendi, the inspector of the ordnance, the cannon were dismounted and placed in hollow trunks of trees, and thus dragged up the steep and dangerous ascents by one half of a battalion, while the other half carried their own and their comrades' arms and accoutrements, with provisions for five days. The gun carriages and ammunition wagons were taken to pieces, placed on mules, and thus conveyed across the mountain. The soldiers were obliged to walk in single file, and when the head of a column rested, it checked those behind; availing themselves of the halt, the soldiers refreshed themselves with biscuits steeped in melted snow; then again advancing, they beguiled their labour and renewed their energies under the inspiration of national songs; combining hilarity with patient endurance.

The following anecdote is from Latrobe. The largest of their dogs, Jupiter, was the general favourite, at the time of my visit, as the most sagacious and useful of the race. He had saved the lives of a woman