. The roads and railroads, vehicles, and modes of travelling, of ancient and modern countries; with accounts of bridges, tunnels, and canals, in various parts of the world .. . stead of staying at home, when thestorms rage, usually accompanied by dogs of which thesagacity is such that they often discover a suffering tra-veller under his covering of drifted or fallen snow; andeven the dogs themselves, as if conscious of their powers, 210 THE GREAT SAINT-BERNARD. and intent upon their noble duty, roam alone, by day andnight, about these desolate regions; and if they find aman or woman not to be
. The roads and railroads, vehicles, and modes of travelling, of ancient and modern countries; with accounts of bridges, tunnels, and canals, in various parts of the world .. . stead of staying at home, when thestorms rage, usually accompanied by dogs of which thesagacity is such that they often discover a suffering tra-veller under his covering of drifted or fallen snow; andeven the dogs themselves, as if conscious of their powers, 210 THE GREAT SAINT-BERNARD. and intent upon their noble duty, roam alone, by day andnight, about these desolate regions; and if they find aman or woman not to be roused, and apparently neardeath, or if they find a child which they cannot carryaway with them to the convent, they will lie down uponthe body, applying their warm bellies to the heart of thesufferer, and bark or howl for better assistance. At theconvent, in the mean time, in snow-storms, or in otherseasons of peculiar danger, a bell is kept continually ring-ing, for the chance that it may direct to the convent someone who is in distress on the road, and who may eitherhave lost his way, or be yielding to despair through igno-rance that he is so near a human Dog cf Saint-Bernard. Sometimes the monks of the convent, the servants,or the dogs, are themselves the victims, in their efforts tosave those in danger or affliction. On the 17th of De-cember, 1825, three servants of the convent, with threetravellers and two dogs, had descended to the vacheries,or cow-pastures, at St. Remy, a league down the Italianor Piedmontese side of the mountain; which place theyreached in safety, and were returning with a fresh tra-veller under their care, when an avalanche overwhelmed THE GREAT SAINT-BERNARD. 211 the party, and all perished except one of the dogs, whichescaped through its prodigious strength, after being thrownover and over several times by the force of the fallingsnow. None of the bodies of the dead were found tiltthe melting of the snow of the avalanche, at the ensuing
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade18, booksubjectrailroads, bookyear1839
