Sir Walter Scott said that he would believe anything of a St. Bernard dog. Their natural sagacity is, indeed, so sharpened by long practice and careful training, that a sort of language is established between them and the good monks of St. Bernard, by which mutual communications are made, such as few persons living in situations of less constant and severe trials can have any just conceptions of. When we look at the extraordinary sagacity of the animal, his great strength, and his instinctive faculties, we shall feel convinced how admirably he is adapted to fulfil the purpose for which he is chiefly employed,—that of saving lives in snow-storms.

The peculiar faculty of the St. Bernard dogs is shown by the curious fact, that if a whelp of this breed is placed upon snow for the first time, it will begin to scratch it, and sniff about as if in search of something. When they have been regularly trained, they are generally sent out in pairs during heavy snow-storms in search of travellers, who may have been overwhelmed by the snow. In this way they pass over a great extent of country, and by the acuteness of their scent discover if any one is buried in the snowdrift. When it is considered that Mount St. Bernard is situated about 8000 feet above the level of the sea, and that it is the highest habitable spot in Europe, and that the road which passes across it is constantly traversed, the great utility of the dogs is sufficiently manifest. Neither is the kindness, charity, and hospitality of the good monks less to be admired than the noble qualities of these dogs.

"Under every circumstance," says Mr. Brockedon, "in which it is possible to render assistance, the worthy religieuses of St. Bernard set out upon their fearful duty unawed by the storm, and obeying a higher Power; they seek the exhausted or overwhelmed traveller, accompanied by their dogs, whose sagacity will generally detect the victim though buried in the snow. The dogs, also, as if conscious of a high duty, will roam alone through the day and night in these desolate regions, and if they discover an exhausted traveller will lie on him to impart warmth, and bark and howl for assistance."[P]

Mr. Mathews, in his "Diary of an Invalid," gives this testimony in praise of the inmates of St. Bernard. "The approach," he says, "to the convent for the last hour of the ascent is steep and difficult. The convent is not seen till you arrive within a few hundred yards of it; when it breaks upon the view all at once, at a turn in the rock. Upon a projecting crag near it stood one of the celebrated dogs, baying at our advance, as if to give notice of strangers. These dogs are of a large size, particularly high upon the legs, and generally of a milk white, or of a tabby colour. They are most extraordinary creatures, if all the stories the monks tell of them are true. They are used for the purpose of searching for travellers who may be buried in the snow; and many persons are rescued annually from death by their means. During the last winter, a traveller arrived at the convent in the midst of a snow-storm, having been compelled to leave his wife, who was unable to proceed further, at about a quarter of a mile's distance. A party of the monks immediately set out to her assistance, and found her completely buried under the snow. The sagacity of the dogs alone was the cause of her deliverance, for there was no visible trace, and it is difficult to understand how the scent can be conveyed through a deep covering of snow.

"It is stated that the monks themselves, when out upon search for travellers, have frequently owed their preservation to their dogs, in a manner which would seem to show that the dogs are endued with a presentiment of danger.

"Many stories of this kind have been told, and I was anxious to ascertain their truth. The monks stated two or three cases where the dogs had actually prevented them from returning to the convent by their accustomed route, when it afterwards turned out, that if they had not followed the guidance of their dog in his deviation, they would have been overwhelmed by an avalanche. Whether the dog may be endued with an intuitive foreboding of danger, or whether he may have the faculty of detecting symptoms not perceptible to our duller senses, must be determined by philosophers."

That dogs and other animals, especially elephants, have this faculty, cannot be doubted. There is an instance on record of a dog having, by his importunity and peculiar gestures, induced his mistress to quit a washhouse in which she was at work, the roof of which fell in almost immediately afterwards. Dogs have been known to give the alarm of fire, by howling and other signs, before it was perceived by any of the inmates of the house. Their apprehension of danger is indeed very acute and very extraordinary, and may serve to account for and prove the accuracy of what has been stated respecting the instinct of the St. Bernard dogs.

These dogs, however, do not always escape being overwhelmed by a sudden avalanche, which falls, as is most usual, in the spring of the year. Two of the domestics of the convent, with two or three dogs, were escorting some travellers, and were lost in 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 dogs never fail to find the place of his interment, which they point out by scratching and snuffing; when the sufferer is dug out, and carried to the monastery, where means are used for his recovery.

The Count de Monte Veccios had a St. Bernard dog, which, as his master always had reported, could understand whatever he said to him; and the following short account deserves to be recorded, as it at once indicates memory, compassion, love, gratitude, and resentment in the faithful animal, even if we do not allow it to make good his master's opinion. The story is this:—

The Count had served long in the wars, and always had this faithful attendant with him. The republic of Venice had been signally indebted to his courage, but had not rewarded him. He had a favour to ask of the then General Morosini; and as that commander was a man of singular pride and arrogance, he was obliged to wait a favourable opportunity of presenting his suit. One day when the General himself had a favour to ask of the Doge (who was a person of high elegance, and celebrated for his love of expensive entertainments), he laid out half his fortune on a cold collation, to which he had invited the Doge, to put him in humour for his suit. Thinking this the most suitable time for his purpose, as he who was about to ask a favour for himself would hardly at that instant deny one to another, the Count went to him some hours before the Doge was expected, and was graciously received in the room where the table was prepared. Here he began to make his court to the General, by praising the elegance and pomp of the preparation, which consisted of many thousands of finely-cut vessels of Venetian glass, filled with the richest sweetmeats and cold provisions, and disposed on fine tables, all covered with one vast cloth, with a deep gold fringe, which swept the ground. The Count said a thousand fine things about the elegance and richness of the dessert, and particularly admired the profusion of expense in the workmanship of the crystal and the weight of the gold fringe. Thus far he was very courteously treated; and the lord of the feast pompously told him that all the workmen in Venice had been half a year employed about them. From this he proceeded to the business of his suit; but this met with a very different reception, and was not only refused, but the denial attended with very harsh language. The Count was shocked at the ill-nature of the General, and went away in a very melancholy mood. As he went out, he patted his dog upon the head, and, out of the fulness of his heart, said to him with an afflicted air, "Tu vois, mon ami, comme l'on nous traite,—You see, my friend, how I am used." The dog looked up wistfully in his face, and returned him an answer with his tears. He accompanied him till he was at some distance from the General's, when, finding him engaged in company, he took that opportunity of leaving him with people who might justify him if accused. Upon which the dog, returning back to the house of the haughty officer, entered the great room, and taking hold of the gold tassel at one of the corners of the cloth, ran forcibly back, and drew after him the whole preparation, which in a moment lay strewed on the ground in a vast heap of broken glasses; thus revenging his master's quarrel, and ensuring as unexpected a reception to the General's requests as the latter had given to those of the Count.

One of the St. Bernard dogs, named Barry, had a medal tied round his neck as a badge of honourable distinction, for he had saved the lives of forty persons. He at length died nobly in his vocation. In the winter of 1816, a Piedmontese courier arrived at St. Bernard on a very stormy day, labouring to make his way to the little village of St. Pierre, in the valley beneath the mountain, where his wife and children lived. It was in vain that the monks attempted to check his resolution to reach his family. They at last gave him two guides, each of whom was accompanied by a dog, one of which was the remarkable creature whose services had been so valuable. They set forth on their way down the mountain. In the mean time the anxious family of the poor courier, alarmed at his long absence, commenced the ascent of the mountain, in hopes of meeting him, or obtaining some information respecting him. Thus at the moment he and his guides were descending, his family were toiling up the icy steep, crowned with the snows of ages. A sudden crackling noise was heard, and then a thundering roar echoing through the Alpine heights—and all was still. Courier, and guides, and dogs, and the courier's family, were at the same moment overwhelmed by one common destruction—not one escaped. Two avalanches had broken away from the mountain pinnacles, and swept with impetuous force into the valley below.