n an avalanche. One of
the predecessors of these dogs, an intelligent animal, which had
served the hospital for the space of twelve years, had, during that
time, saved the lives of many individuals. 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 Drouaz and the Ice-house of Balsora. He
immediately began to lick him, and having succeeded in restoring
animation, and the perfect recovery of the boy, by means of his
caresses, he induced the child to tie himself round his body. In this
way he carried the poor little creature, as if in triumph, to the
hospital. When old age deprived him of strength, the prior of the
convent pensioned him at Berne by way of reward. He is now dead, and
his body stuffed and deposited in the museum of that town. The little
phial, in which he carried a reviving liquor for the distressed
travellers whom he found among the mountains, is still suspended from
his neck.

The story of this dog has been often told, but it cannot be too
frequently repeated. Its authenticity is well established, and it
affords another proof of the utility and sense of the St. Bernard
dogs. Neither can the benevolence of the good monks be too highly
praised. To those accustomed to behold the habitations of man,
surrounded by flowery gardens, green and pleasing meadows, rivulets
winding and sparkling over their pebbly bottoms, and groves in which
songsters haunt and warble, the sight of a large monastery, situated
on a gigantic eminence, with clouds rolling at its foot, and
encompassed only by beds of ice and snow, must be awfully impressive.
Yet amidst these boundless labyrinths of rugged glens and precipices,
in the very rudest seasons, as often as it snows or the weather is
foggy, do some of those benevolent persons go forth, with long poles,
guided by their sagacious dogs. In this way they seek the high road,
which these animals, with their instinctive faculty, never miss, how
difficult soever to find. If an unfortunate traveller has sunk beneath
the force of the falling snows, or should be immersed among them, the
dog