Our breakfast was very simple, and the Superior of the establishment confined himself to a small cup of coffee and morsel of bread. They have but one substantial meal a day. I was interested in observing our host. His appearance and manner were prepossessing and agreeable, but this morning something seemed to weigh anxiously on his mind. He was abstracted in manner, and once as I looked up suddenly, his lips were moving, and he half checked himself in an involuntary gesture. Had the confession of the penitents, perhaps, troubled him? I believe he was a sincere, self-sacrificing man, and I have often thought of his manner that morning.
We were, of course, very anxious to see the dogs, but were told they are now becoming exceedingly scarce. They can not be kept very long in the piercing air of the mountains, its rarefaction being as injurious to them as to human beings. Most of them are therefore kept at Martigny, or some other place below. We were told, however, that two 'pups' were now at the hospice; and as we sallied out for a walk over the hills, we heard a violent scratching at an adjoining door, which being opened, out burst the pups. They were perfect monsters, though very young, with huge paws, lithe and graceful but compact forms, full of life and activity, and faces beaming with instinct. Darting out with us, they seemed frantic with joy, snuffed the keen air as they rushed about, sometimes tumbling over each other, and at times bursting against us with a force that nearly knocked us down. They reminded me of two young tigers at their gambols. I have never seen nobler-looking brutes. What fine, honest, expressive countenances they had! At times a peculiar sort of frown would ruffle the skin around their eyes, their ears would prick up, and every nerve seem to be quickened. The face of a noble dog appears to me to be capable of almost as great a variety of expression as the human countenance, and these changes are sometimes more rapid. The inquisitive and chagrined look when baffled in pursuit of prey, the keen relish of joy, the look of supplication for food, of conscious guilt for misdemeanor, the eyes beaming with intense affection for a master, and whining sorrow for his absence, the meek look of endurance in sickness, the feeble, listless air, the resigned expression of the glassy eye at the approach of death, blending even then with indications of gratitude for kindness shown! These dumb brutes can often teach us lessons of meek endurance and resignation as well as courage, and few things call forth more just indignation than to see them abused by men far more brutish than they.
Accompanying one of the younger brethren on an errand to the valley below, we watched them dashing along till the intervening rocks hid them from our view. In the extensive museum of the Monastery we found much to interest us. Many of the curiosities are gifts of former travelers, and some of them are of great value. There is also a small collection of antiquities found in the immediate neighborhood, where, I believe, are still traces of an ancient temple. The St. Bernard has been a favorite pass with armies, and is thought by many to have been that chosen by Hannibal.
Not very far from the house is the 'morgue' so often noticed by travelers, containing numerous bodies, which, though they have not decayed, are nevertheless repulsive to look upon. The well-known figures of the woman and her babe show that for once the warm refuge of a mother's breast chilled and fainted in the pitiless storm.
After cordial well—wishes from the brethren, we left the hospice, bringing away remembrances of it as one of the most interesting places it has been our privilege to visit. It has, of course, changed character within half a century, and there is now less necessity for it than formerly. Many travelers complain of it as now wearing too much the appearance of a hotel; but we were there too late in the season to find it so; and even if true at other times, the associations with the Monastery and the Pass are so interesting, the scenery so bold, and the welcome one meets with so cordial, that he who regrets having made the ascent must have had a very different experience from ourselves.
A few hours' ride brought us to the valley, where we met peasants driving carts and bearing baskets piled up with luscious grapes. A trifle that the poorest traveler could have spared, procured us an ample supply.
THE HUGUENOTS OF STATEN ISLAND.
Staten Island, that enchanting sea-girt spot in the beautiful Bay of New-York, early became a favorite resort with the French Protestants. It should be called the Huguenot Island; and for fine scenery, inland and water, natural beauties, hill, dale, and streams, with a bracing, healthful climate, it strongly reminds the traveler of some regions in France. No wonder that Frenchmen should select such a spot in a new land, for their quiet homes. The very earliest settlers on its shores were men of religious principles. Hudson, the great navigator, discovered the Island, in 1609, when he first entered the noble river which bears his undying name. It was called by its Indian owners, Aquehioneja, Manackong, or Eghquaous, which, translated, means the place of Bad Woods, referring, probably, to the character of its original savage inhabitants. Among the very earliest patents granted for lands in New-Netherland, we find one of June 19th, 1642, to Cornelius Melyn, a Dutch burgomaster. He thus became a Patroon of Staten Island, and subsequently a few others obtained the same honor and privileges. They were all connected with the Dutch Reformed Church, in Holland; and when they emigrated to New-Netherland, always brought with them their Bibles and the 'Kranek-besoecker,' or 'Comforter of the Sick,' who supplied the place of a regular clergyman. Twice were the earliest settlers dispersed by the Raritan Indians, but they rallied again, until their progress became uninterrupted and permanent.
Between the Hollanders and the French Refugees, there existed an old and intimate friendship. Holland, from the beginning of the Middle Ages, had been the asylum for all the religious out-laws from all parts of Europe. But especially the persecuting wars and troubles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, brought hither crowds of exiles. Not less than thirty thousand English, who had embraced the Reformed faith, found here a shelter during the reign of Mary Tudor. Hosts of Germans, during the 'Thirty Years' War,' obtained on the banks of the Amstel and the Rhine, that religious liberty, which they had in vain claimed in their own country. But the greatest emigration was that of the Walloons, from the bloody tyranny of the Duke of Alba, and the Count of Parma. For a long period the Reformed faith had found adherents in the Provinces of the Low Countries. Here the first churches were under the Cross, or in the Secret, as it was styled, and they concealed themselves from the raging persecution, by hiding, as it were, their faith, under mystic names, the sense of which believers only knew. We will mention only a few. That of Tournay, 'The Palm-Tree;' Antwerp, 'The Vine;' Mons, 'The Olive;' Lille, 'The Rose;' Douay, 'The Wheat-Sheaf;' and the Church of Arras had for its symbol 'The Hearts-Ease.' In 1561, they published in French, their Confession of Faith, and in 1563, their Deputies, from the Reformed Communities of Flanders, Brabant, Artois, and Hainault, united in a single body, holding the first Synod of which we have any account. These regions were an old part of the French Netherlands, or Low Countries; and a small section of Brabant was called Walloon; and here were found innumerable advocates of the Reformed faith. The whole country would probably have become the most Protestant of all Europe, were it not for the torrents of blood poured out for the maintenance of the Roman religion by the Duke of Alba.