112 THE SHEEP. 



noble Dogs of St Bernard, is employed to discover the re- 

 mains of the perished traveller. 



" Next morning the sky was clear ; but a cold intemperate 

 wind still blew from the north. The face of the country was 

 entirely altered. The form of every hill was changed, and 

 new mountains leaned over every valley. All traces of burns, 

 rivers, and lakes, were obliterated." " When we came to 

 the ground where the sheep should have been, there was not 

 one of them above the snow. Here and there, at a great 

 distance from each other, we could perceive the heads or 

 horns of stragglers appearing ; and these were easily got 

 out ; but when we had collected these few, we could find no 

 more. They had been lying all abroad in a scattered state 

 when the storm came on, and were covered over just as they 

 had been lying. It was on a kind of sloping ground, that 

 lay half beneath the wind, and the snow was uniformly from 

 six to eight feet deep. Under this the hogs were lying scat- 

 tered over at least one hundred acres of heathery ground. 

 We went about boring with our long poles, and often did 

 not find one hog in a quarter of an hour. But at length a 

 white shaggy colly, named Sparkie. that belonged to the 

 cowherd boy, seemed to have comprehended something of 

 our perplexity, for we observed him plying and scraping in 

 the snow with great violence, and always looking over his 

 shoulder for us. On going to the spot, we found that he had 

 marked straight above a sheep. From that he flew to ano- 

 ther, and so on to another, as fast as we could dig them out, 

 and ten times faster, for he sometimes had twenty or thirty 

 holes marked beforehand." 



Although these dreadful tempests occur but occasionally, 

 bad seasons, that is, seasons in which the ground is covered 

 for a long period with frozen snow, are common, and never 

 fail to affect, in a serious manner, the health and condition 

 of the flock. When they take place at the period of lamb- 

 ing, great numbers of the young creatures perish, notwith- 

 standing every care on the part of the shepherds. 



