es at
night! And we rightly admire such bravery, and thrill with admiration at
the tale. Yet those armies which crossed the Alps failed to equal the
heroic self-sacrifice of those soldiers of the cross, the Monks of the
Grand St. Bernard, who remain for years at their post, unknown and
unsung by the wide, wide world, simply to save and shelter the humble
travelers who come to grief in their winter journey across the pass, in
search of work.

AVALANCHES[60]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

Beside this dazzling, magnificent snow, covering the chain of lofty
peaks like an immaculate altar cloth, what a gloomy, dull look there
is in the snow of the plains! One might think it was made of sugar or
confectionery, that it was false like all the rest.

To know what snow really is--to get quit of this feeling of artificial
snow that we have when we see the stunted shrubs in our Parisian gardens
wrapt, as it were, in silk paper like bits of Christmas trees--it must
be seen here in these far-off, high valleys of the Engandine, that lie
for eight months dead under their shroud of snow, and often, even in the
height of summer, have to shiver anew under some wintry flakes.

It is here that snow is truly beautiful! It shines in the sun with a
dazzling whiteness; it sparkles with a thousand fires like diamond dust;
it shows gleams like the plumage of a white dove, and it is as firm
under the foot as a marble pavement. It is so fine-grained, so compact,
that it clings like dust to every crevice and bend, to every projecting
edge and point, and follows every outline of the mountain, the form of
which it leaves as clearly defined as if it were a covering of thin
gauze. It sports in the most charming decorations, carves alabaster
facings and cornices on the cliffs, wreathes them in delicate lace,
covers them with vast canopies of white satin spangled with stars and
fringed with silver.

And yet this dry, hard snow is extremely susceptible to the slightest
shock, and may be set in motion by a very trifling disturbance of the
air. The flight of a bird, the cracking of a whip, the tinkling of
bells, even the conversation of persons going along sometimes suffices
to shake and loosen it from the vertical face of the cliffs to which it
is clinging; and it runs down like grains of sand, growing as it falls,
by drawing down with it other beds of snow. It is like a torrent, a
snowy waterfall, bursting out suddenly from the side of the mountain;
it rushe