Part 16

The fishermen appeared divided into two watches or squads, one of which was actively casting for the shad, the other more pleasantly employed in cooking them.

We took our stand upon a green point elevated a few feet above the river it projected into; in front ran the Sault, or leap, raging like the ocean when lashed by a gale, and churning amongst reefs of rock. Opposite to us, at a distance of some half mile, stood a couple of very spacious stone-built mills, their lofty substantial walls pierced by numerous narrow windows, and surmounted by steep red roofs, high over which waved a grove of noble trees: this was _l'île Jésu_, and the stand whence we surveyed this scene the Isle of Montreal.

Whichever way we cast our eyes, up or down the stream, its course was vexed and its mood chafed more or less; but before, and close upon our right, was the wildest turmoil; and over an eddy of this, from off temporary platforms of planks, the fishermen flung down the stream their round landing-nets, as far as the eighteen-foot pole to which these were affixed would permit, then painfully dragged them back against the current, sometimes laden with fine shad, but oftener coming home empty, to be again leisurely cast back.

The sameness of this movement, the softness of the turf, and the difficulty attending conversation, had gradually lulled our little party into a pleasant reverie; when, on a sudden, we were startled by faint cheers borne on the downward breeze: we all sprang upon our feet in an instant, and, looking upwards, caught sight of a monstrous bed of timber bounding towards the Sault.

This was the very chance we had desired and were waiting for, and intensely was my sight directed towards it. On the very centre of the raft a tall pole was elevated, surmounted by a fanciful flag; at its foot the Pilot, or _Conducteur_, was stationed, motioning the course suggested by his glance at the state of the fall, towards which the mass was hurried with a rapidity each instant seemed to accelerate; and, in obedience to his directions, the active _rameurs_ were seen tugging at the oars, and straining each sinew to the uttermost.

Involuntarily we approached the very edge of our stand, to watch as closely as possible the first plunge of that great raft down into the boiling breakers, from whose abyss a crew of Titans could not now have turned it. Quickly it neared the awful leap; at a signal from the watchful pilot, the foremost half of the crew abandoned their useless oars; and, running nimbly along the timber, rallied in a group about their standard, waving their caps, and braving the wild roar of the water with as wild a cheer. Suddenly the fluttering pennon drooped against the mast, then rose erect above it; the loud hurrah was lost, and headlong down they sank.

The heavy mass, loosely bound together, now writhed and bent about like a net of twine cast upon an angry brook, whilst the concussion produced by the clashing timbers sounded like a discharge from a battery. I drew short breath as I looked upon the men emerging from the foam, and again actively running to quarters to resume the heavy oars.

If the raft goes down unbroken, they guide it so as to preserve the very strength of the stream, until the diminished pace again demands their labour; but if any timbers are severed from the parent bed by the leap, as is frequently the case, the sternmost gang leisurely dart their pile-headed poles of an almost unwieldy length into the stray logs, and thus drawing them quickly back again, secure them in their places preparatory to the next fall lying on their perilous path.

I felt monstrously excited when, roused by the cry of the near _voyageurs_, I rose for the first time to witness a scene to which I feel my pen can do but little justice; from the first glance at the timber-ends emerging past a leafy turn in the up-stream, and bounding onward with a momentary increase of impetus, until the strong raft becomes but as a bed of straw upon the torrent. Then there is the desperate plying of the oars, their hurried abandonment, with the in-gathering, of the bold crew clinging together with cheers round their bright flag, until the leap is made, and the assailing waves rise boiling about and above them.

One of the descending rafts, for we were favoured with several, parted in nearly two halves within the rapids: luckily no one had been left out of bounds; for, as the fishermen assured us, the strongest swimmer is never seen alive after his first plunge into these frightful eddies.

Having abided our time, we purchased a fine shad, which we took to a near cottage, where the mistress cheerfully set about _boucan_-ing it for us; that is, roasting it over the fire in the smoke of the wood. With this, some brown-bread, and a glass of water, we made an excellent luncheon; then, after taking a considerable circuit, re-entered Montreal, and crossed at once to the island _par excellence_.

At half-past eight P.M. of the same evening I was put on board the "British America" steamboat, a fine large-class vessel, having a heavily laden schooner in tow.

As we swept down before the river-front of the city, I was struck with the appearance of the steep tin-roofed houses and many little domes glancing back the moon's rays; when, turning to regard St. Helen's, the blaze of a port-fire arrested my attention; the flash of the gun instantly succeeded, whilst, amidst its prolonged echoes, rose the contending notes of drum and bugle. It was just nine o'clock; in a few moments all was again calm and still, the last spire of Montreal quickly retreated in the shades of night, and the low banks of the St. Lawrence stretched away far and wide before us.

After a couple of hours' walk on deck, where two or three ladies and gentlemen were promenading with the quick, active step that at once proclaimed them English, I felt sufficiently wearied by some eighteen hours actively passed on foot or in saddle, to calculate on a sound sleep.

About midnight a devil of a row awakened me; I listened, and heard a rush overhead like a burst of cavalry, the trampling of horses, the yelling of dogs, together with the loud voices of many men in high contention. What the mischief can have come to us? thinks I.

A stray waiter, whom I discovered discoursin' a friend in the pantry, was at last made sensible of my calls, and from this youth I quickly learned our whereabout.

We were lying at Sorrel, the country-residence of the Governor, Lord Aylmer; and the noise was occasioned by the shipping of his lordship's stud for Quebec, whither the family had removed from this summer abode, to await and receive the commission about to supersede him in his high office.

Finding that the din was not occasioned by an infall of the aborigines, but was only a peaceful taking in of freight, I dismissed my waiter to his friend and pantry, and "addressed me again to sleep."

_Sunday, 7th._--About noon arrived at _Trois Rivières_, a very pretty little town, which, being Sunday, was thronged with the rural population of the vicinity attending church.

Numbers of these persons were pacing along the river-bank upon sturdy little ponies, and in the harbour were many _bateaux_ filling with them, before re-crossing the St. Lawrence: their dress was invariably neat and picturesque, and their physiognomy, though somewhat heavy, was gentle and pleasing. These _bateaux_ were shaded with the branches of trees, and decorated with wild flowers, and when moving off with their freight had quite an Arcadian appearance.

From this place to St. Anne's, the north bank of this river might be sketched for the same side of the Mississippi as viewed from New Orleans to Baton Rouge; a natural levee runs along at about the same elevation, on a like dead level; directly behind this bank are scattered similar poor-looking tenements, badly built, and half painted; and, at a certain distance in the rear of these, rises a melancholy-looking forest of half-naked trees, with not a single rise or gap along the hazy line of the horizon resting upon them. The glowing heat of this calm day also favoured the illusion, which was certainly in all its points the most perfect imaginable: it would require very little to persuade a man landed here on such a day that he was in Louisiana.

The river again becomes interesting about the junction of the Richelieu. The banks are once more broken and of irregular heights. Numerous churches, having domes and spires like the _béfrois_ of Normandy, only that these are roofed over with pure tin, shoot above each wooded knoll; and the stream whirls and boils amongst reefs of irregular rock, some hidden, others visible, moving at a great pace for the ticklish navigation.

At three P.M. the Heights of Abraham hove in sight, and our prospect grew in interest with every moment. Next rose a forest of tall masts along the shore; away upon our right was Point Levi, with its soft wooded brow; and above our heads upon the left glistened tower and town, with the grim batteries hanging over the precipice.

As we drew closer, the ruins of the Chateau formed an object of striking interest, and gave added effect to the approach to this most picturesque capital; an object of interest which I hope will soon be removed by his Majesty's loyal and liberal parliament for Lower Canada, and a new edifice erected, in a style becoming to their taste and worthy such a site.

The valley of Montmorency, with its long straggling suburb, soon opened to our view; and the river assumed the appearance of a lake encircled by mountains, and bounded at its eastern extremity by the Isle of Orleans.

I was perfectly enraptured with air, earth, and water: freshness and beauty reigned over all; there was not a cloud in the sky or a spot on the landscape one would have desired blotted out; and, taken as a _coup d'oeil_, I do not hesitate to say this was by far the finest I ever beheld.

Sunday though this was, there was much bustle in the harbour. Little dwarfish steamers were flying across the channel in opposite directions; long boats, laden with sea-worn emigrants, were rowing from the shore back to their respective ships.

It was pleasant to look on these poor people coming back from a first attendance at the altars raised, by their predecessors in exile, amidst a wilderness now made, by the industry Heaven has blessed, so glorious.

How cheering in their eyes must have been this sunny view of the land of their adoption! How must their hearts have leaped within them as they pressed for the first time its shores, and heard once more the sound of the church-going bell, and kneeled in gratitude before that type of salvation which they came to bear yet deeper within the bosom of the desert, themselves the hardy pilgrims of a new crusade! their _hâches d'armes_, their stout wood-axes; their lances, the goads of the patient steer; their artillery, the plough and harrow; their advance, the progress of industrious hardihood; their bloodless victory, a blessing to the field they win, a glory to the banner under which they strive: braving peril, toil, and exile for a country to be made holy by their triumph, and consecrated at once to freedom and to God!

It was impossible to contemplate unmoved this rustic chivalry, this banding of men of every European tongue for a common purpose, so pregnant with good for themselves and for their posterity.

Let the healthful tide roll on, here is boundless space for all comers; and ages must pass before willing toil shall fail to find present employment, cheered by the prospect of ultimate independence.

About five P.M. we were landed. In company with Captain W----s, U. S. A. I ascended the mountain; and, as our time was limited, we had no sooner secured good quarters at the hotel than we sallied forth to survey the works, which are, I understand, of the strongest and most perfect description, sufficiently guaranteeing Quebec against all surprisal for the time to come.

The finest view is that offered from the Signal-tower.

The city, Point Levi, the winding river, with the Isle of Orleans, lay clearly spread beneath our feet as in a well-designed panorama, with such light and shadow as the artist is seldom favoured with, except in imagination.

Coming down from the fort, I was happy enough to encounter Captain Doyle, driving a right London-appointed tilbury. He had been to the hotel in search of me, and now, dismissing his boy, installed me in the vacancy, and set off at once for the field of battle on the Plains of Abraham.

Our first pull-up was by a little potato-field, memorable as the spot where the gallant Wolfe fell. A broken column of black marble had just been erected here by Lord Aylmer: a tribute honourable to the taste of the gallant soldier living, and which will henceforward worthily mark the spot where the young victor died.

After viewing over the battle-ground, with the ascent from Wolfe's Cove, we turned back to the city and drove to the Chateau, or rather to its ruins. We walked through the blackened hall out upon the still firm floor of the gallery, or balcony, overlooking at a giddy height the lower town. From this we strolled through the hanging-garden of the Chateau, which is laid out on terraces cut from the face of the precipice, and hedged in by a range of cannon of the largest calibre.

Took coffee with Doyle in a chamber, which, although placed at a somewhat unfashionable altitude, commanded a prospect worth all the labour of a threefold flight. Finding it a hopeless task waiting for night, that is, for darkness, went home and to bed, a little wearied, but more delighted, leaving directions to be called at five A.M. having arranged with Captain W----s to ride at that hour to the Falls of Montmorency.

_Monday, 8th._--In saddle by half past five A.M. with a morning that made these narrow, dusty streets look both cool and clear. The market-folk were already in motion from the country, having light carts filled with the articles they supply to the _bourgeoisie_.

Crossing a long wooden bridge, whose toll was collected by a sturdy old invalid soldier, we entered, soon after, a perfect French village of interminable length, closely flanking the highway, and possessing a very large and well-built church, fronted, after the fashion universal here, by a couple of spires, with a large dome in the centre, all coated over with bright tin, and so glittering famously in the morning sun.

A tolerable road brought us in ten miles or so to the object of our early gallop. Hitching the horses beneath a near shed, we roamed about looking how best to descend; until discovering a ladder planted against the face of the precipice, we took to this, and going down it about seventy feet, were landed upon a table-rock exactly on a level with the torrent, and at the very point whence it makes its down leap into a bay of the St. Lawrence, a portion of it being arrested, and turned to the ignoble use of a wool-carding mill, which abuts on the very edge of the cataract.

I have no sort of doubt that, had I been brought hither before seeing Niagara, I should have felt duly impressed by its grandeur, which is unquestionably of a character sufficiently striking to inspire a much less sensitive admirer of the sublime in nature; as it was, this fall only brought fresh to my recollection the scene I had looked upon the year before, no feature of which can ever be effaced by any other object.

At this day I can find no adequate language wherein to dress my impressions of that wonder. Of Montmorency I only know that I felt, whilst viewing it, as though other doings of Nature might be found every way fellow to it: that such things, in fact, were existing elsewhere, or might be.

But Niagara in its greatness makes all else little. It stands, incomparable and alone, a time-defying monument of creation as first called from chaos; one feels that the waters of the deluge may have risen above it and subsided, leaving it unaltered. It is possible to imagine all other worldly things either changed, or within the scope of mutation and the power of Time. You feel that with most earthly things you have a right to speculate, to calculate on their endurance, to control and to direct them: but never so with old Niagara. Its aspect awes man into nothing, it mocks at his dreams, and defies alike his wisdom and his power.

Certain points on this Montmorency road afford, I fancy, the finest view of Quebec. Two sides of the city are presented, with its close streets, and bright-roofed buildings, rising irregularly tier over tier, and crowned by the formidable lines of defence over which the cross of Old England waves proudly in the breeze. Opposite swells the softer outline of Point Levi, sprinkled with pretty cottages, and separated from the mountain by a narrow channel. As a foreground, the smooth bay lies spread between, and over all bends a sky without a cloud, glowing in the colour of the early morning sun.

With this scene before us, we rattled back at a merry pace, reaching our quarters by a little after eight A.M. We found horses here awaiting to carry us to the Chateau to breakfast, an attention of Captain Doyle's which, after a hasty toilet, we availed ourselves of.

My steed, who had probably an eye to his own breakfast rather than to mine, made a bolt for the stable just as we gained the house; I strove to persuade him to take me to the door by the only means I possessed--patience, civility, and a stick: but he would not be 'ticed; I lost my patience, forgot my civility, and broke my stick, yet he fairly bullied me, till, finding my saddle turning, I left him to go his own way, and ungraciously ceded the point in dispute.

After breakfast, my American soldier companion being naturally solicitous to witness guard mounting, I accompanied him on to the parade, and had the pleasure of seeing the 79th Highlanders come on the ground, with the band and pipes playing alternately. It was really quite refreshing to see this fine corps in such order; the men were uncommonly good-looking fellows, and fairly shook the ground with their measured tread.

Of all our soldiers no arm attracts the notice and admiration of strangers so much as the Highland corps; the striking colours of the costume, its picturesque arrangement, the waving of the gay plaid and plume, together with the strange wild skirl of the bagpipes, lay hold on the imagination, and are at the same time so unlike the military array of any other country, that no comparison is ever suggested as a drawback.

It was no easy matter to tear oneself away from the hospitalities tendered from every quarter here; but finding that after this night no boat was to sail until Wednesday, and having pledged myself to be at Montreal on that day, I even buckled on the armour of resolution, and, making a virtue of necessity, broke away in time to join Captain W----s on board the steamer, at ten o'clock P.M. Within a quarter of an hour after we left the wharf, making a sweep downwards in order to take a large brig in tow from her moorings in the stream.

This chance and the correspondent delay, afforded us an opportunity of viewing the city from various points. The night was lovely, and the deep shadows of the towering mountain, with each salient angle made bright by the silver moon, formed a picture altogether enchanting.

The ruins of the Chateau, with the rays of bright light streaming through its open roof and many windows over the blackened broken walls, became, however, my chief object of admiration.

I trust the good citizens of Quebec, having been afforded this opportunity, will erect a pile here worthy the site; a castellated building would perhaps be the style best adapted to this, and would come well in with the river line of defence, whose strong curtain runs parallel with the terrace, from which the windows of the Chateau look perpendicularly upon the streets two hundred feet below.

At Wolfe's Cove we approached close under the wooded heights, where we took in tow a second brig; then sheering out, began painfully to ascend the current with a dead head-breeze, and having these monsters yawing about on each quarter.

Our Titan steamer groaned, and heaved, and strained, as though but sulkily submitting to this added charge, and doing the master's work, in the spirit of Caliban, under the spell of a higher intelligence.

_Tuesday, 9th._--Find that during the night our progress continued painfully slow; indeed, only that the wind lulled, we could not have stemmed the rapids; but when above the Richelieu we made better way, arriving at Trois Rivières about noon, with a fine fair breeze blowing up the stream.

The brigs were here cast loose to make the best of their way whilst we took in a supply of wood. Meantime, Captain W----s and I took a stroll about the town, which in itself is pretty, and agreeably situated. All this day the breeze continued favourable, and consequently our pace was tolerable. How long we should have been with a head-wind, it is impossible to say.

_Wednesday, 10th._--I was this morning on deck by four A.M. and was well repaid for my early rising. We were some thirty miles distant from Montreal, as our pilot informed me: the land on either side was low, but soft, verdant, and well wooded, with the prettiest-looking villages dotted along from point to point. At times, three or four of these, with their triple-spired churches, were at once visible as we slowly steered through groups of islets of every form and size, but all of a colour of unequalled purity.

I cannot wonder at the rapturous language used in the description of these places by the sea-wearied discoverers who viewed them for the first time in the summer season; for even I, with no such spur to imagination, find it difficult to stick to sober prose when recalling the luxuriant growth of these isles of the far North. It would appear as though Nature, aware that the possession of beauty is with them extremely limited, had resolved, by way of compensation, to render their short-lived loveliness surpassing.

At last was seen, high towering over all, the rounded top of the fairest of the hundred isles of the St. Lawrence, St. Helen's; and, shortly after, the glittering domes of the city of Montreal gave warning that our up-voyage was drawing to a happy conclusion.