3-021-627 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new overland route to India: the railway over the Alps - summit of Mont Cenis and lake, 1869. A '...view of the summit of Mont Cenis, with the hospice and lake, which are familiar to everyone who has made an Italian tour. The principal peak is called the "Grand Mont Cenis." On the other side of the lake, to the west, is another peak called the little Mont Cenis. The building in the foreground is one of the houses of refuge, which are all along the pass, in which travellers may find shelter in case of snowstorms. The severe character of these storms is indicated by the fact that some of these houses of refuge are not above a quarter of a mile from each other. There are in all twenty-three houses on the pass. [This] one is on the Italian side of the frontier, and has on its outside "Regia Casa," or King's House. The top of the pass is about 7000ft. above the sea. The railway at this point is covered in by a gallery, seen on the left. This is to save it from drifting snow. In the distance is the hospice. Here Napoleon slept when he crossed the Alps...There are some walls, in ruins, which Napoleon erected by way of fortifying the place; and there is a small fort, now tumbling down, visible on a hill between the hospice and the lake'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.