A month in Switzerland has afforded me good opportunity to see something of its striking natural scenery, its sublime mountains and charming lakes, and to mingle somewhat with its people. - - - I had long hoped sometime to traverse Alpine ranges, to visit the home of the glacier and the avalanche, and gaze on the snow-covered brow of Mont Blanc. And now the favored time had come, and with the mighty feeling of reality, I here often found myself repeating these apt and well-known lines of Bryon:

Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Above pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy hills
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche – the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appalls,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may piece to heaven, and leave vain man below.

We visited that most interesting spot in the Alpine solitudes, the Hospice of Grand St. Bernard. It is one of the highest passes in the sublime mountains, its elevation being more than eight thousand feet, a half the whole height of Mount Blanc. Before we reached it, “the shades of night were falling fast,” and patches of snow and ice lay around us, while the entire region, utterly destitute of vegetation, presented an aspect of chilling bleakness and dread desolation. On arriving at the Hospice, the sight of such a building, in such a place – a substantial stone edifice with comfortable rooms and beds a good supper, and fire in the parlor – was very grateful.
Often hundreds of travelers are fed and lodged daily, and no changes made. It is customary, however for those who are able, to leave a liberal sum for their entertainment.
Who has not heard of the dogs of St. Bernard, and their exploits in rescuing travelers overtaken by terrible storms of snow.