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CHAPTER II.

THE ST. BERNARD.

No dog ever appealed more to the kindly instincts of humanity than the St. Bernard. Not his rich chesnut or tawny colour with dark facings and white collar and blaze, nor his kindly benevolent countenance and immense size and power, gave him his popularity. He won that on other "fields" than the artificial ones of dogs shows. He earned his laurels and his popularity on the mountains of Switzerland. Tourists had talked of his intelligence, travellers had written stories of how he saved the lives of benighted travellers overcome by snowstorms. The St. Bernard was a hero in imagination and in anticipation, long before he was seen in this country; and when he was seen, his beauty and dignity at once made him master of the situation.

Some people had called him an Alpine mastiffa bloodhound; others had termed him a mongrel— the consensus of opinion was in favour of his nomenclature being after that hospice of St. Bernard

in the Alps, where the monks had bred and reared. the intelligent creature, and had trained him to go out in the snowstorms and seek for and find any poor traveller whose strength had failed him, and who might lay beneath a snow wreath midway between life and death. What schoolboy has not heard of Barry, the wonderful dog of St. Bernard, who in his time had been the means of saving the lives of some fifteen persons, though the number varies according to the imagination of the narrator, and thus is generally, but incorrectly, given as about forty. However, Barry was the most celebrated dog these monks ever possessed, and during fourteen years (he was fifteen when he died) went out on to the mountains and sought for the strickendown wayfarer. It has been said that the poor dog met his end by one whom he sought to rescue, taking him for a wolf and killing him. Another story is as follows:

In the winter of 1816, we are told that a Piedmontese courier arrived at the Hospice on a very stormy day, intent on proceeding on his journey to the village of St. Pierre, in the vale below, and where his family were. The monks attempted to dissuade him from leaving until the storm had abated, but he preferred going forward, so, with two guides and a couple of dogs, he set out down the

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