transport; for, notwithstanding the lavish expense of money, there were not so many mules as were required for the enormous weight that was to be carried to the other side of the St. Bernard. However, the provisions and ammunition having crossed along with the divisions of the army and with the assistance of the soldiers, the artillery at length demanded attention. The gun-carriages and the ammunition wagons had been taken to pieces, as we have said, and placed on mules. The cannon themselves were still left, and their weight could not be reduced by the division of the load. With the twelve-pounders in particular, and with the howitzers, the difficulty was greater than had been at first expected. The sledges on wheels, constructed in the arsenals, could not be used. A method was contrived, tried immediately, and found to answer: this was, to split the trunks of fir trees in two, to hollow them out, to encase each piece of artillery within two of these half trunks, and to drag it thus covered along the ravines. Owing to these precautions no collision could damage it. Mules were harnessed to this singular load, and served to draw several pieces to the summit of the Col. But the descent was more difficult: that could only be effected by strength of arms and by incurring infinite dangers, because it was necessary to keep hold of the piece, and, while holding, to prevent it from slipping down the precipices. Unfortunately the mules began to be knocked up. The muleteers also, a great number of whom were required, were exhausted. It was then proposed to have recourse to other means. The peasants of the environs were offered so much as a thousand francs for every piece of cannon which they should agree to drag from St. Pierre to St. Remy. It took a hundred men to drag each, one day to get it up and another to get it down. Some hundreds of peasants came forward, and actually took several pieces of cannon across, under the direction of artillerymen. But even the allurement of gain was not strong enough to induce them to repeat the effort. All of them disappeared, and though officers were sent in quest of them, and made large offers to bring them back, these were of no avail, so that it was found necessary to ask the soldiers of the divisions to drag their artillery themselves. From such devoted soldiers anything might be obtained. To encourage them, they were promised the money which the disheartened peasants would not earn; but they refused it, saying that it was a point of honour for a body of troops to save their cannon, and they laid hold of the forsaken pieces. Parties of one hundred men, successively quitting the ranks, dragged them, each in its turn. The band played enlivening airs at difficult points of the passage and encouraged them to surmount obstacles of so novel a nature. On reaching the summit of the mountain they found refreshments prepared by the monks of St. Bernard; and they took some rest before they made greater and more perilous efforts in the descent. In this manner, Chambarlhac's and Monnier's divisions dragged their artillery themselves; and, as the advanced hour did not permit them to descend the same day, they chose rather to bivouac on the snow than to leave their cannon. Luckily the weather was serene; so that they had not its inclemency to endure, in addition to the difficulties of the ground. Napoleon himself set out to cross the Col before daylight on the 20th. He was accompained by Duroc his aide-de-camp, and De Bourrienne his secretary. Artists have delineated him crossing the Alpine heights mounted on a fiery steed. The plain truth is, that he ascended the St. Bernard in that grey surtout which he usually wore, upon a mule, led by a guide belonging to the country, evincing, even in the difficult passes, the abstraction of a mind occupied elsewhere, conversing with the officers scattered on the road, and then, at intervals, questioning the guide who attended him, making him relate the particulars of his life, his pleasures, his pains, like an idle traveller who has nothing better to do. This guide, who was quite young, gave him a simple recital of the details of his obscure existence, and especially the vexation he felt because, for want of a little money, he could not marry one of the girls of his valley. The First Consul, sometimes listening, sometimes questioning the passengers with whom the mountain was covered, arrived at the Hospice, where the worthy monks gave him a warm reception. No sooner had he alighted from his mule than he wrote a note which he handed to his guide, desiring him to be sure and deliver it to the quarter-master of the army, who had been left on the other side of the St. Bernard. In the evening, the young man, on return ing to St. Pierre learned with surprise what powerful traveller it was whom he had guided in the morning; and that General Bonaparte had ordered that a house and piece of ground should be given to him immediately, and that he should be supplied, in short, with the means requisite for marrying and for realising all the dreams of his modest ambition. This mountaineer died not long since, in his own country, an owner of land given to him by the ruler of the world. This singular act of beneficence, at a moment when his mind was engaged by such mighty interests, is worthy of attention. If there were nothing in it but a mere conqueror's caprice, dispensing at random good or evil, alternately overthrowing empires or rearing a cottage, it may be useful to record such caprices, if only to tempt the masters of the earth to imitation; but such an act reveals something more. The human soul in those moments when it is filled with ardent desires is disposed to kindness; it does good by way of meriting that which it is soliciting of Providence. The First Consul halted for a short time with the monks, thanked them for their attentions to his army, and made them a magnificent present for the relief of the poor and of travellers. He descended rapidly, suffering himself, according to the custom of the country, to glide down upon the snow, and arrived the same evening at Etroubles. Next day, after having paid some attention to the park of artillery, and to the provisions, he set out for Aosta and Bard. Thiers. History of the Consulate and Empire. VII THE ALPS IN FICTION [THIS is the first literary reference to 'Alpine shop.'] AND so, ere answer knows what question would, And talking of the Alps and Apennines, The Pyrenean and the river Po, It draws towards supper in conclusion so. But this is worshipful society, And fits the mounting spirit like myself. King John. Act I. Scene 1. [Milton here places the Alps in hell, but there were mountains in Paradise too (Book XI. line 377).] THROUGH many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good; Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, SIR WALTER SCOTT Paradise Lost, Book II. [This famous description of the Lake of Lucerne and Pilatus was written by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in 1829 as a chapter in one of the last of the Waverley Novels, Anne of Geierstein. Shakespeare Milton Sir Walter Reading it now, we realise how recent is that peculiar and affectionate intimacy with the Alps which marks later literature. Something must be set down to the deliberate effort of the novelist to revive the impressions and feelings of an earlier day. But with all that we cannot fail to perceive that Scott looked upon the Alps with feelings quite different from ours. The change must be largely accredited to the successive groups of Alpine climbers and explorers who have gradually accustomed us to the glaciers and precipices of the Alps.] FOR several hours after leaving Lucerne, the journey of our travellers was successfully prosecuted. The road, though precipitous and difficult, was rendered interesting by those splendid phenomena, which no country exhibits in a more astonishing manner than the mountains of Switzerland, where the rocky pass, the verdant valley, the broad lake, and the rushing torrent, the attributes of other hills as well as these, are interspersed with the magnificent and yet fearful horrors of the glaciers, a feature peculiar to themselves. It was not an age in which the beauties or grandeur of a landscape made much impression either on the minds of those who travelled through the country or who resided in it. To the latter, the objects, however dignified, were familiar, and associated with daily habits and with daily toil; and the former saw, perhaps, more terror than beauty in the wild region through which they passed, and were rather solicitous to get safe to their night's quarters, than to comment on the grandeur of the scenes which lay between them and their place of rest. Yet our merchants, as they proceeded on their journey, could not help being strongly impressed by the character of the scenery around them. Their road lay along the side of the lake, at times level and close on its very margin, at times rising to a great height on the side of the mountain, and winding along the verge of precipices which sunk down to the water as sharp and sheer as the wall of a castle descending upon the ditch which defends it. At other times it traversed spots of a milder character,delightful green slopes, and lowly, retired valleys, affording both pasturage and arable ground, sometimes watered by small streams, which winded by the hamlet of wooden huts with their fantastic |