Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/340

356 now tunneled for that purpose—uniting Piedmont with Switzerland and the rest of Europe. In about ten years, it is said, that this great work will be accomplished, and then St. Bernard, the herberge of ten centuries, will be deserted; for no one will take a difficult journey of four or five days, when they can, without fatigue, and at small cost, accomplish the same in twelve hours.

A separate building, near the Hospice, contains the bodies of those who have perished on their journey across the mountain. They are arranged along the walls, and present a fearful sight. By degrees, they fall to pieces, and the floor is strewn with skulls and bones.

Why do they not allow the earth to cover these remains? They cannot teach any thing, and they inspire a horror which does not belong to the death, which is the cause of their being here.

“Death by freezing,” said the young guide, on our way, “is not painful. One goes to sleep, and does not wake any more. And when one is poor, without any thing to look forward to on earth, a little sooner, or a later, what does it matter? All must go the same road. It is a good thing to die without suffering!”

A melancholy little mountain lake lies at a short distance from the gloomy tenement; and just below, the road begins to descend on the Italian side, into Piedmont, and the lovely valley of Aosta.

Not far from the Hospice, stood, in former times, a temple of Jupiter, to which, probably, the same merciful duties were attached, as belong to the