THE DOGS OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14007, 11 March 1920, Page 6

THE DOGS OF THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

Evorvone who knew the St. Bernard des of the famous hospice on the pass by which Napoleon crossed the Alps will regret that they were among In* innocent victims, of the great war. •Food supplies ran low in Switzerland. and it was questioned whether the animals should be fed when so many human beings were on the verge 01 hunger. It was finally decided to keep alive only enough to perpetuate the Since the opening of the Simploii tunnel the dogs have not had so much to do as. thev once had. but they have continued to perform useful work Poor travellers have still used the road over the Great St. Bernard, and while there is now a telephone at the Cantine de Proz. the last habitation on the wav up from the Rhone Valley, it is a loiig way to the top of the pass, and modern science has found no way to control avalanches. It was the immemorial custom of the monks to send a brother, accompanied by a dog, dow.i each side of the pass every clay ol the year to meet travellers who happened to be caught by night or bad weather. Xo matter how much snow had fallen, or how blind the trail, the dog alwa\v, led his partv. home, plowing sturdily through the snow to his kennel, the familiar legend pictures him as carrying a flask of wine at his collar and hunting for wayfarers in distress—and we owe much to legend, whether strictly truthful or .colored by poeticimagination. The monastery —founded in the year W>2 bv a Savoyard priest, .St. Bernard de Menthon—.stands at the top. of the: pass, more than 8000 ft above the sea, mi near the line of perpetual snow that the average temperature is below freezing-point. The monks are of the Augustinian order*, the whole community numbering about 40, but only 10 or \'2 of them being stationed at the Alpine hospice. They usually begin their career there as novices of 18 or It), and the ciimate is so severe that few of them keep their health lor more than 12 or 15 years. "When unequal to further service they are sent down to a branch monastery at Martigny, in the comparatively warm valley of the L'pper Rhone. The American tourist who visits the hospice goes- there in summer, when, to" (iiiotcyJ'rom a well-known guidebook", "amid the pleasure and novelty of the scene he is too apt to forget the dreariness of the eight or nine months of winter, when all the) wayfarers are poor, when the ,cold is intense, the spow of great deqth. and the dangers of storms frequent and imminent. # It is then that the privations of these | heroic men are most severe, and their I services to their fellow-creatures most | valuable. "Travellers are boarded and lodged gratuitously," adds the same impeccable authority; "but none should dej posit in the alms-l:ox less than they would have paid at a hotel.' - ' it is not pleasant to read, however, that while the monks entertain some 20,000 travellers in an ordinary year, their revenue from contributions is far l.elow their expenses.