In particular I remarked beds of velvet moss, which bore a pink
blossom, in form somewhat like this. Then there was a kind of low,
starry gentian, of a bright metallic blue; I tried to paint it
afterwards, but neither ultramarine nor any color I could find would
represent its brilliancy; it was a kind of living brightness. I
examined the petals to see how this effect was produced, and it seemed
to be by a kind of prismatic arrangement of the small round particles
of which they were composed. The shape of the flower was somewhat like
this.
[Illustration: _of a cluster of small five petaled flowers with sharp
points growing on short stalks near the ground._]
I spread down my pocket handkerchief, and proceeded to see how many
varieties I could gather, and in a very small circle W. and I
collected eighteen. Could I have thought, when I looked from my window
over this bleak region, that any thing so perfectly lovely as this
little purple witch, for example, was to be found there? It was quite
a significant fact. There is no condition of life, probably, so dreary
that a lowly and patient seeker cannot find its flowers.
[Illustration: _of a clump of a small flowering plant attached to what
appears to be its rhizome._]
I began to think that I might be contented even there. But while I was
looking I was so sickened by headache, and disagreeable feelings
arising from the air, that I often had to lie down on the sunny side
of the bank. W., I found, was similarly troubled; he said he really
thought in the morning he was going to have a fever. We went back to
the house. There were services in the chapel; I could hear the organ
pealing, and the singers responding.
Seven great dogs were sunning themselves on the porch, and as I knew
it was a subject particularly interesting to you, I made minute
inquiries respecting them. Like many other things, they have been much
overstated, I think, by travellers. They are of a tawny-yellow color,
short haired, broad chested, and strong limbed. As to size, I have
seen much larger Newfoundland dogs in Boston. I made one of them open
his mouth, and can assure you it was black as night; a fact which
would seem to imply Newfoundland blood. In fact the breed originally
from Spain is supposed to be a cross between the Pyrenean and the
Newfoundland. The biggest of them was called Pluto. Here is his
likeness, which W. sketched.
[Illustration: _of a large, light-colored dog with medium-short fur at
rest and wearing a broad patterned collar._]
For my part, I was a little uneasy among them, as they went walloping
and frisking around me, flouncing and rolling over each other on the
stone floor, and making, every now and then, the most hideous noises
that it ever came into a dog's head to conceive.
As I saw them biting each other in their clumsy frolics, I began to be
afraid lest they should take it into their heads to treat me like one
of the family, and so stood ready to run.
The man who showed them wished to know if I should like to see some
puppies; to which, in the ardor of natural history, I assented: so he
opened the door of a little stone closet, and sure enough there lay
madam in state, with four little blind, snubbed-nosed pledges. As the
man picked up one of these, and held it up before me in all the
helplessness of infancy, looking for all the world like a roly-poly
pudding with a short tail to it, I could not help querying in my mind,
are you going to be a St. Bernard dog?
One of the large dogs, seeing the door open, thought now was a good
time to examine the premises, and so walked briskly into the kennel,
but was received by the amiable mother with such a sniff of the nose
as sent him howling back into the passage, apparently a much wiser and
better dog than he had been before. Their principal use is to find
paths in the deep snow when the fathers go out to look for travellers,
as they always do in stormy weather. They are not longlived; neither
man nor animal can stand the severe temperature and the thin air for a
long time. Many of the dogs die from diseases of the lungs and
rheumatism, besides those killed by accidents, such as the falling of
avalanches, &c. A little while ago so many died that they were fearful
of losing the breed altogether, and were obliged to recruit by sending
down into the valleys for some they had given away. One of the monks
told us that, when they went out after the dogs in the winter storms,
all they could see of them was their tails moving along through the
snow. The monks themselves can stand the climate but a short time, and
then they are obliged to go down and live in the valleys below, while
others take their places.
They told us that there were over a hundred people in the
_hospice_ when we were there. They were mostly poor peasants and
some beggars. One poor man came up to me, and uncovered his neck,
which was a most disgusting sight, swollen with goitre. I shut my
eyes, and turned another way, like a bad Christian, while our
Augustine friend walked up to him, spoke in a soothing tone, and
called him "my son." He seemed very loving and gentle to all the poor,
dirty people by whom we were surrounded.
