We entered a sort of mountain basin, that was bounded on one side by the glacier of Mont Velan; that which so beautifully bounds the view up the Valais, as seen from Vevey.  I was disappointed in finding an object which, in the distance, was so white and shining, much disfigured and tarnished by fragments of broken rock.  Still the summit shone, in cold and spotless lustre.  There was herbage for a few goats here, and some one had commenced the walls of a rude building that was intended for an inn.  No one was at work near it, a hut of stone, for the shelter of the goatherds, being all that looked like a finished human habitation.

Winding our way across and out of this valley, we came to a turn in the rocks, and beheld two more stone cabins, low and covered, so as to resemble what in America are called root-houses.  They stood a little from the path, on the naked rock.  Crossing to them, we dismounted and looked into the first.  It was empty, had a little straw, and was intended for a refuge, in the event of storms.  Thrusting my head into the other, after the eye had got a little accustomed to the light, I saw a grinning corpse seated against the remotest side.  The body looked like a mummy, but the clothes were still on it, and various shreds of garments lay about the place.  The remains of other bodies, that had gradually shrunk into shapeless masses, were also dimly visible.  Human bones, too, were scattered around.  It is scarcely necessary to add that this was one of the dead-houses, or places in which the bodies of those who perish on the mountain are deposited, to waste away, or to be claimed, as others may or may not feel an interest in their remains.  Interment could only be effected by penetrating the rock, for there was no longer any soil, and such is the purity of the atmosphere that putrescence never occurs.

I asked the guide if he knew anything of the man, whose body still retained some of the semblance of humanity.  He told me he remembered him well, having been at the convent in his company.  It was a poor mason, who had crossed the col, from Piemont, in quest of work; failing of which, he had left Liddes, near nightfall, in order to enjoy the unremitting hospitality of the monks on his return, about a fortnight later.  His body was found on the bare rock, quite near the refuge, on the following day.  The poor fellow had probably perished in the dark, within a few yards of shelter, without knowing it.  Hunger and cold, aided, perhaps, by that refuge of the miserable, brandy, had destroyed him.  He had been dead now two years, and yet his remains preserved a hideous resemblance to the living man.