At the top would be found "La Chapelle des Transis," the wayfarers' mortuary, not empty probably; in March 1578 it contained fifteen bodies.[107] After heavy snowfalls the monks of the neighbouring hospice of St. Nicolas used to send out search parties; corpses discovered were examined for proofs of orthodoxy, beads, for instance, failing which the bodies were left to the beasts of prey.
During this period the Mt. Cenis route came to be used more exclusively for passing between France and Italy than had previously been the case, doubtless as a result of the transference of the capital of Savoy from Chambéry to Turin in 1559, between which towns this route was the most direct. Yet notwithstanding that travellers note here, and here alone, that the population on either side of the pass had no other means of livelihood than by ministering to travellers, the most frequented route must be considered the Brenner. It was the only one which wheeled traffic could pass, though even there the waggon had to be kept from falling off the road "by force of men's shoulders," according to Moryson.
Of the experiences to be met with in crossing an Alpine pass other than the Brenner, there is no better account than that which the Infanta Clara Eugenia wrote home concerning the St. Gothard. Even before reaching Bellinzona the luggage carts had to be exchanged for mules. And at Bellinzona, too, she notes that there was not a woman without an enormous goitre; and, indeed, the frequency with which travellers remark on the number of those afflicted in this way leaves no doubt but that the disease was far more prevalent then than now. It was generally accepted that the cause lay in the water, but one old resident, at least, disbelieved this, since he had one himself, although, as he told a tourist, he had never drunk water in his life. The worst of the Infanta's journey occupied the four days after leaving Bellinzona; the way so narrow that a horse could scarcely walk and the litters had continually to be taken off the mules and transferred to men. This narrow path, of course, lay always with the mountain-side high above it and a precipice and a river below. The ladies' litters were by no means according to royal standards; just four poles and a linen seat, from which the royal legs dangled; but she rode most of the way, feeling no fear of anything but the "snow-bridges," two of which had to be crossed. On the farther side there was the "Devil's Bridge" to pass also, or, as she names it, "Hell Bridge"; which now does not even exist; twenty paces long above the Reuss, so far above that the river was out of sight, although the rush of it resounded so loudly that she could not hear herself speak. The whole road had been specially prepared for her passage, and among the preparations was the erecting of railings along "Hell Bridge"; in the ordinary way there were none, the wind being so strong in the narrow gorge as always to sweep them away very soon. He who passed by the St. Gothard under ordinary conditions, and the Furka, too, wore gloves and boots studded with nails to preserve his hold; and the average Alpine bridge answered to the description which Cellini gives of those he found on the Simplon route, a few tree-trunks laid down. Another Italian going home that way says the last bridge was thirty feet by two and bent in the middle; he crossed it at night, coming as it did among the "last four leagues"(?) between the summit and Domodossola, all of which he and his traversed in pitch-darkness among precipices, the foremost calling at intervals "Ave Maria" and the hindmost answering "Gratiâ plena."