Chapter XLI 



The St. Bernard Dog 



HE first thing that should be done in writing a history of the 

 St. Bernard dog is to remove as much as possible of the 

 romance that has become attached to the breed and become 

 almost as much a fixture as the standard. Ever since Land- 

 seer's picture of the tv^o St. Bernards digging a traveller out 

 of the snow in an Alpine pass all Christendom has figured the dogs of the 

 Hospice as patrolling the passes of the Alps, provided with blankets and a 

 small cask of brandy for the use of travellers. They seldom do anything 

 approaching that, the use they are put to being altogether different. 

 Writing from the Hospice on August 27, 1887, to the English Stock- 

 keeper^ Mr. W. O. Hughes-Hughes, who was at that time one of the 

 leading lights of the St. Bernard fancy in England, gives the following in- 

 formation: 



"As to the rescue of perishing travellers, this is a rare and occasional 

 incident of a Hospice dog's life, but the service which he renders to humanity 

 is quite as real and far more frequent and arduous. His regular duty is 

 rather to prevent the traveller from falling into danger than to save him from 

 its consequences. To explain: for the last five miles the path to the Hos- 

 pice on the Swiss side leads up a deep, narrow and rugged valley, through 

 which it winds from side to side, crossing and recrossing the torrent at several 

 places. In winter vast quantities of snow accumulate in this valley, com- 

 pletely obliterating the path, the stream, and in fact every landmark. 



These drifts are often of immense depth, covering chasms between rocks, 

 the deep bed of the stream, precipices and other dangers. The position of 

 the drifts is also so often altered by furious gales of wind which remove them 

 from one spot and heap them up in another, that the most experienced of 

 the monks cannot tell where it is safe to tread. In this emergency the in- 

 stinct of the dog is infallible. On every winter morning one dog and one 

 monk go down each side of the pass to escort to the Hospice the travellers 

 who have been passing the night at the refuge below. The dog goes in 

 front and the monk follows in its steps and is never led astray." 



573 



