One Of The Monks
Told Us That, When They Went Out After The Dogs In The Winter Storms,
All They Could See Of Them Was Their Tails Moving Along Through The
Snow.
The monks themselves can stand the climate but a short time, and
then they are obliged to go down and live in the valleys below, while
others take their places.
They told us that there were over a hundred people in the
_hospice_ when we were there. They were mostly poor peasants and
some beggars. One poor man came up to me, and uncovered his neck,
which was a most disgusting sight, swollen with goitre. I shut my
eyes, and turned another way, like a bad Christian, while our
Augustine friend walked up to him, spoke in a soothing tone, and
called him "my son." He seemed very loving and gentle to all the poor,
dirty people by whom we were surrounded.
I went into the chapel to look at the pictures. There was St. Bernard
standing in the midst of a desolate, snowy waste, with a little child
on one arm and a great dog beside him.
This St. Bernard, it seems, was a man of noble family, who lived nine
hundred and sixty-two years after Christ. Almost up to that time a
temple to Jupiter continued standing on this spot. It is said that the
founding of this institution finally rooted out the idolatrous
worship.
On Monday we returned to Martigny, and obtained a _voiture_ for
Villeneuve.
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