It is impossible at the Hospice to dig graves in the rock and snow and ice, so they have a “dead house” where the bodies which are found in the snow are placed and kept. The atmosphere is so pure and intensely cold that decomposition takes place very slowly. There are about fifty bodies in the dead house now, the last two having been placed there about eighteen months ago. I went into this house, and I really believe that if I had ever known the two persons last placed there, I could have recognized them then. Any traveler is kindly received by the monks and entertained for the night without any charge. Each visitor is expected, however, to “drop something in the box.” Napoleon once stopped here, and hundreds of his soldiers, as they passed over the mountains with the cannon, partook of the hospitality of the monks. Afterwards, the great Frenchman sent one of his generals here to be buried, that he might have the Alps as a monument. I visited the prison of Chillon. It is a gloomy old castle with five great towers, built upon a rock projecting some two hundred yards into Lake Geneva. Byron says of it: “Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar; for ’twas trod Until his very steps have left a trace, Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface, “For they appeal from tyranny to God. There are seven pillars of Gothic mould In Chillon’s dungeon deep and old, And in each pillar there is a ring, And in each ring there is a chain.” The description is perfect. The whole thing is there as of old. I must stay my weary hand. I have already perhaps, written too much about Switzerland. But I have no apology to offer. I am in love with the country, that’s all. Love Switzerland? “Who could help it that has a heart to love, And in that heart courage to make its love known?” [Illustration: SWISS MOUNTAINS.]