DESCENDING THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.

XIV.

DESCENDING THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.

The Great River of Canada—Jacques Cartier—The Great Lakes—The Ancient Course—The St. Lawrence Canals—Toronto—Lake of the Thousand Islands—Kingston—Garden of the Great Spirit—Clayton—Frontenac—Round Island—Alexandria Bay—Brockville—Ogdensburg—Prescott—Galop, Plat and Long Sault Rapids—Cornwall—St. Regis—Lake St. Francis—Coteau, Split Rock, Cascades and Cedars Rapids—Lake St. Louis—Lachine—Caughnawaga—Lachine Rapids—Montreal—St. Mary's Current—St. Helen's Island—Montreal Churches and Religious Houses—Hochelaga—First Religious Colonization—Dauversière and Olier—Society of Notre Dame de Montreal—Maisonneuve—Mademoiselle Mance—Marguerite Bourgeoys—Madame de la Peltrie—The Accommodation—Victoria Tubular Bridge—Seminary of St. Sulpice—Hotel Dieu—The Black Nuns—The Gray Nunnery—McGill University—Place d'Armes—Church of Notre Dame—Cathedral of St. Peter—Notre Dame de Lourdes—Christ Church Cathedral—Champ de Mars—Notre Dame de Bonsecours—Rapids of St. Anne—Lake of the Two Mountains—Trappists—Mount Royal—Ottawa River—Long Sault Rapids—Thermopylæ—Louis Joseph Papineau—Riviere aux Lièvres—The Habitan—The Metis—Ottawa—Bytown—Chaudière Falls—Rideau Canal—Dominion Government Buildings—Richelieu River—Lake St. Peter—St. Francis River—Three Rivers—Shawanagan Fall—St. Augustin—Sillery—Quebec—Stadacona—Samuel de Champlain—Montmagny—Laval de Montmorency—Jesuit Missionaries—Father Davion—The French Gentilhomme—Cape Diamond—Charles Dilke—Henry Ward Beecher—Castle of St. Louis—Quebec Citadel—Wolfe-Montcalm Monument—General Montgomery—Plains of Abraham—General Wolfe—The Basilica—The Seminary—English Cathedral—Bishop Mountain—The Ursulines—Marie Guyart—Montcalm's Skull—Hotel Dieu—Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemont and their Martyrdom—Notre Dame des Victoires—Dufferin Terrace—Point Levis—Beauport—French Cottages—Faith of the Habitans—Cardinal Newman—Falls of Montmorency—La Bonne Sainte Anne—Isle of Orleans—St. Laurent and St. Pierre—The Laurentides—Cape Tourmente—Bay of St. Paul—Mount Eboulements—Murray Bay—Kamouraska—Riviere du Loup—Cacouna—Tadousac—Saguenay River—Grand Discharge and Little Discharge—Ha Ha Bay—Chicoutimi—Capes Trinity and Eternity—Restigouche Region—Micmac Indians—Glooscap—Lorette—Roberval—Lake St. John—Montaignais Indians—Trois Pistoles—Rimouski—Gaspé—Notre Dame Mountains—Labrador—Grand Falls—The Fishermen.

THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA.

Thus sang Maria Brooks to the noble river St. Lawrence, which the earlier geographers always called "the Great River of Canada." The first adventurous white man who crossed the seas and found it was the intrepid French navigator, Jacques Cartier, who sailed into its broad bay on the festival day of the martyred Saint Lawrence, in 1534. When this bold explorer started from France on his voyage of discovery he was fired with religious zeal. St. Malo, on the coast of Brittany, was then the chief French seaport, and before departing, the entire company of officers and sailors piously attended a solemn High Mass in the old Cathedral, and in the presence of thousands received the venerable Archbishop's blessing upon their enterprise. Cartier, like all the rest of the early discoverers, was sent under the auspices of the French Government to hunt for the "Northwest Passage," the short route from Europe to the Indies, or, as described in his instructions, to seek "the new road to Cathay." The Church naturally bestowed its most earnest benisons upon an enterprise promising unlimited religious expansion in the realms France might secure across the Atlantic. Carrier's chief ship was only of one hundred and twenty tons, but the little fleet crossed the ocean in safety, and on July 9th entered a large bay south of the St. Lawrence, encountering such intense heats that it was named the Bay de Chaleurs, being still thus called. After an extensive examination of the neighboring coasts and bays, Cartier returned home, reporting that the Canadian summers were as warm as those of France, but giving no information of the extreme cold of the winters. This the sun-loving Gauls did not discover until later. Cartier came back the next year, and sailed up what he had already named the "Great River," describing it as the most enormous in the world. The Indians told his wondering sailors "it goes so far that no man hath ever been to the end that they had heard." The explorers carefully examined the vast stream, its shores and branches, and were sure, as they reported, that its sombre tributary, the Saguenay, "comes from the Sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a strong current, and there runs here a terrible tide." They saw numerous whales and other sea-monsters, but found the water too deep for soundings, and in fact the river St. Lawrence cannot be sounded for one hundred and fifty miles up from its mouth.

ITS VAST EXTENT AND FEATURES.

The St. Lawrence is an enormous river, having much the largest estuary of any river on the globe, the tidal current flowing five hundred miles up the stream, and its mouth spreading ninety-six miles wide. It is the outlet of the greatest body of fresh water in existence, draining seven vast lakes—Nepigon, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Champlain—besides myriads of smaller ones, including the Central New York lakes, hundreds in the Adirondack forests, and thousands in the vast Canadian wilderness. The St. Lawrence basin covers a territory of over four hundred thousand square miles, and has been computed as containing more than half the fresh water on the planet. The main St. Lawrence river is seven hundred and fifty miles long from Lake Ontario to the head of the Gulf, while the total length of the whole system of lakes and rivers is over two thousand miles, and has been computed by some patient mathematician to contain a mass of fresh water equal to twelve thousand cubic miles, of which one cubic mile goes over Niagara Falls every week. The early geographers usually located the head of the system in Lake Nepigon, north of Superior, but it is thought the longer line to the ocean is from the source of St. Louis River, flowing through Minnesota into the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior at Duluth. The bigness of the wonderful St. Lawrence is shown in everything about it. Thoreau, who was such a keen observer, has written that this great river rises near another "Father of Waters," the Mississippi, and "issues from a remarkable spring, far up in the woods, fifteen hundred miles in circumference," called Lake Superior, while "it makes such a noise in its tumbling down at one place (Niagara) as is heard all round the world." The geologists, however, who usually upturn most things, declare that it did not always reach the sea as now. Originally the St. Lawrence, they say, flowed into the ocean by going out through the Narrows in New York harbor, and its immense current broke the passage through the West Point Highlands in a mighty stream, compared with which the present Hudson River is a pigmy. Professor Newberry writes that during countless ages this enormous river, which no human eyes beheld, carried off the surplus waters of a great drainage area with a rapid current cutting down its gorge many hundred feet in depth, reaching from the Lake Superior basin to the Narrows, where it dispersed in a vast delta, debouching upon a sea then much lower in level than now, and having its shore-line about eighty miles southeast of New York. By some stupendous convulsion this channel was changed, drift banked up the old valley of the Mohawk, and the outflow was deflected from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario into the present shallow and rocky channel, filled with islands and rapids, followed by the St. Lawrence down to Montreal.

The system of navigable water ways from Duluth and Port Arthur on Lake Superior to the Strait of Belle Isle is twenty-two hundred miles long. At Lake Ontario the head of the St. Lawrence River is two hundred and thirty-one feet above the sea level, and its current descends that distance to tidewater chiefly by going down successive rapids. There are ship canals around these rapids and around Niagara Falls, and also connecting various lakes above. The Sault Sainte Marie locks and canals, at the outlet of Lake Superior, have already been described. The admirable systems conducting navigation around the rapids in the river below Lake Ontario also carry a large tonnage. Between Ogdensburg and Montreal, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles, the navigation of forty-three miles is through six canals of various lengths around the rapids, each having elaborate locks. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is also constructed upon an enormous scale, covering eighty thousand square miles, and with the lower river having a tidal ebb and flow of eighteen to twenty-four feet. The mouth of the river and head of the Gulf are usually located at Cape Chatte, far below the Saguenay, and from the Cape almost up to Quebec the river is ten to thirty miles wide. In front of Quebec it narrows to less than a mile, while above, the width is from one to two and a half miles to Montreal, expanding to ten miles at Lake St. Peter, where the tidal influence ceases. Above Montreal the river occasionally expands into lakes, but is generally a broad and strongly flowing stream with frequent rapids. The largest ocean vessels freely ascend to Montreal, at the head of ship navigation, Lachine rapids being just above the city. For several months in winter, however, ice prevents.

THE CITY OF TORONTO.

Lake Ontario, out of which the river St. Lawrence flows, is nearly two hundred miles long, and in some places seventy miles wide. It has generally low shores and but few islands, and the name given it by Champlain was Lake St. Louis, after the King of France. The original Indian name, however, has since been retained, Ontario meaning "how beautiful is the rock standing in the water." Three well-known Canadian cities are upon its shores—Hamilton at the western end, Toronto on the northern coast, and Kingston near the eastern end. Hamilton is a busy, industrial and commercial city of fifty thousand people, having a good harbor. The great port, however, is Toronto, with over two hundred thousand inhabitants, the capital of the Province of Ontario, and the headquarters of the Scottish and Irish Protestants, who settled and rule Upper Canada, the richest and most populous province of the Dominion. Toronto means "the place of meeting," and the word was first heard in the seventeenth century as applied to the country of the Hurons, between Lakes Huron and Simcoe, the name being afterwards given to the Indian portage route, starting from Lake Ontario, in the present city limits, over to that country. Here, in 1749, the French established a small trading-post, Fort Rouille, but there was no settlement to speak of for a century or more. The United Empire Loyalists, under General Simcoe, founded the present city in 1793 under the name of York, and it was made the capital of Upper Canada, of which Simcoe was Governor. The location was an admirable one. The portage led up a romantic little stream, now called Humber River, while out in front was an excellent harbor, protected by a long, low, forest-clad island, making a perfect land-locked basin, sheltered from the storms of the lake. The nucleus of a town was thus started on a tract of marshy land, adjoining the Humber, familiarly known for nearly a half century as "Muddy Little York," which characteristic a part of the city still retains, as the pedestrian in falling weather can testify. Yet the site is a pleasing one—two little rivers, the Humber and the Don, flowing down to the lake through deep and picturesque ravines, having the city between and along them, while there is a gradual slope upward to an elevation of two hundred feet and over at some distance inland, an ancient terrace, which was the bank of the lake.

The town did not grow much at first, and during the War of 1812 it was twice captured by the Americans, but they could not hold it long. As the back country was settled and lake navigation afterwards developed, however, the harbor became of importance and the city grew, being finally incorporated as Toronto. Then it got a great impetus and became known as the "Queen City," its geographical advantages as a centre of railway as well as water routes attracting a large immigration, so that it has grown to be the second city in Canada, and its people hope it may outstrip Montreal and become the first. It has achieved a high rank commercially, and in religion and education, so that there are substantial grounds for the claim, often made, that it is the "Boston of Canada." It contains a church for about every thousand inhabitants, Sunday is observed with great strictness, and it has in the University of Toronto the chief educational foundation in the Dominion, and in the Toronto Globe the leading organ of Canadian Liberalism. The city spreads for eight miles along the lake shore; the streets are laid out at right angles, and there are many fine buildings. Yonge Street, dividing the city, stretches northward from the harbor forty miles inland to the shore of Lake Simcoe. There are attractive residential streets, with many ornate dwellings in tasteful gardens. St. James' Cathedral, near Yonge Street, is a fine Early English structure, with a noble clock and a grand spire rising three hundred and sixteen feet. There is a new City Hall, an enormous Romanesque building with an impressive tower, and Osgoode Hall, the seat of the Ontario Superior Courts, in Italian Renaissance, its name being given from the first Chief Justice of Upper Canada. In Queen's Park are the massive Grecian buildings of the Provincial Parliament, finished in 1892 at a cost of $1,500,000. This Park contains a bronze statue of George Brown, long a leading Canadian statesman, and a monument erected in memory of the men who fell in repelling the Fenian invasion of 1866.

The buildings of the University of Toronto, to the westward of the Queen's Park, are extensive and form a magnificent architectural group. The main building is Norman, with a massive central tower, rebuilt in 1890, after having been burnt. There are fifteen hundred students, and the University offers complete courses in the arts and sciences, law and medicine. To the northward is McMaster Hall, a Baptist theological college, tastefully constructed and liberally endowed. From the top of the tall University tower there is an admirable view over the city and far across the lake. The town spreads broadly out on either hand, running down to the harbor, beyond which is the narrow streak made by the low-lying island enclosing it. Far to the southward stretch the sparkling waters of Ontario, reaching to the horizon, while in the distance can be seen a faint little silver cloud of spray rising from Niagara. In the northern background villas dot the green and wooded hillsides, showing how the city spreads, while in every direction the incomplete buildings and the gentle distant noises of the builder's hammer and trowel testify to its robust growth. Many steamers move about the harbor, and among them are the ferry-boats carrying crowds over to the low-lying island, with its many amusement places, the city's great recreation ground. At Hanlon's Point, its western end, was long the home of Hanlon, the "champion sculler of the world," one of Toronto's celebrities.

THE LAKE OF THE THOUSAND ISLANDS.

Out of Ontario the great river St. Lawrence flows one hundred and seventy-two miles down to Montreal, being for much of the distance the boundary between the United States and Canada. Kingston, with twenty-five thousand people, guarded by picturesque graystone batteries and martello towers—the "Limestone City"—stands at the head of the river where it issues from the lake. To the westward is the entrance of the spacious Bay of Quinté, and on the eastern side the terminus of the Rideau Canal, leading northeastward to the Rideau River and Ottawa, the Canadian capital. This was originally the French Fort Cataraqui, established at the mouth of Cataraqui River in 1672, the name being subsequently changed by Count Frontenac to Frontenac. The Indian word Cataraqui means "Clay bank rising from the water," and after the fort was built the meaning changed to "fort rising from the water." Here the Sieur de La Salle, in 1678, built the first vessel navigating the lake. The British captured the fort in 1762, naming it Kingston, after the American Revolution, and by fortifying the promontories commanding the harbor, made it the strongest military post in Canada after Quebec and Halifax, the chief work being Fort Henry. Its garrisons have been long withdrawn, however, and now the old-time forts are useful chiefly as additions to the attractive scenery of its harbor and approaches. At the outlet of Ontario the course of the St. Lawrence begins with the noted archipelago known as the "Lake of the Thousand Islands," there being actually about seventeen hundred of them. This is a remarkable formation, composed largely of fragments of the range of Laurentian mountains, here coming southward out of Canada to the river, producing an extraordinary region. This Laurentian formation the geologists describe as the oldest land in the world—"the first rough sketch and axis of America." During countless ages this range has been worn down by the effect of rain, frost, snow and rivers, and scratched and broken by rough, resistless glaciers, and we are told that, compared with these fragmentary "Thousand Islands" and the almost worn-out mountains of the lower St. Lawrence basin, the Alps and the Andes are but creations of yesterday.

Wolfe Island broadly obstructs the Ontario outlet between Kingston and Cape Vincent on the New York shore, and from them, with an island-filled channel, in some places twelve miles broad, the swift river current threads the archipelago by pleasant and tortuous passages nearly to Ogdensburg, forty miles below. These islands are of all sizes, shapes and appearance, varying from small low rocks and gaunt crags to gorgeous foliage-covered gardens. On account of their large numbers, the early French explorers named them "Les Milles Isles," and in the ancient chronicles they are described as "obstructing navigation and mystifying the most experienced Iroquois pilots." Fenimore Cooper located some of the most interesting incidents of his Pathfinder in "that labyrinth of land and water, the Thousand Isles." The larger islands in spring and summer are generally covered with luxuriant vegetation, and the river shores are a delicious landscape of low but bold bluffs and fruitful fields spreading down to the water, with distant forests bounding the horizon. The atmosphere is usually dry, light and mellow, and the Indians, who admired this attractive region, appropriately called it Manatoana, or the "Garden of the Great Spirit." Howe Island adjoins Wolfe Island, and below is the long Grindstone Island. Here on the New York shore is the village of Clayton, where the New York Central Railroad comes up from Utica and Rome, the leading route to this region. Below is the almost circular Round Island with its large hotel, and everywhere are charming little islets, while ahead, down the St. Lawrence, are myriads more islands, apparently massed together in a maze of dark green distant foliage, the enchanted isles of a fascinating summer sea:

In the Thousand Islands, St. Lawrence

Sailing down the river, group after group of big and little green islands are passed, the winding route and tortuous channels marked by diminutive lighthouses and beacons, while nearly every island has its cottages and often ornate and elaborate villas. Everywhere the shores appear to be granite rocks, bright green foliage varying with the darker evergreens surmounting them. All the waters are brilliantly green and clear as crystal, rippled by breezes laden with balsamic odors from the adjacent forests. Attractive cottages everywhere appear, with little attendant boat-houses down by the water side, and canoes and skiffs are in limitless supply, as the chief travelling is by them. Everything seems to be full of life; in all directions are pleasant views, the surface is dotted with pleasure-boats and white-sailed yachts, the whole region being semi-amphibious, and its people spending as much time on the water as on the land. The river, too, is a great highway of commerce among these islands, many large vessels passing along, and timber rafts guided by puffing little tugs. Much of the product of the Canadian forests is thus taken to market, a good deal going to Europe, and the sentimental and often musical Metis, who live aboard in huts or tents, are the raftsmen, working the broad sails and big steering-paddles on the tedious floating journey down to Quebec. There are many large hotels, and the big one on Round Island is named for Louis XIV.'s chivalrous and fiery Governor of Canada, Count de Frontenac. His remains are buried in the Basilica at Quebec, and his heart, enclosed in a leaden casket, was sent home to his widow in France. She was much younger, and, evidently piqued at some of his alleged love affairs, refused to receive it, saying she would not have a dead heart which had not been hers while living. The Baptists have a summer settlement on Round Island, and a short distance below the extensive Wellesley Island has on its upper end the popular Methodist summer town of the Thousand Island Park, where little cottages and tents around the great Tabernacle often take care of ten thousand people. Upon the lower end the Presbyterians have established their attractive resort, Westminster Park, which faces Alexandria Bay.

ALEXANDRIA BAY.

The chief settlement of the archipelago is the village of Alexandria Bay on the New York shore, and in the spacious reach of the river in front are the most famous and costly of the island cottages. Here are large hotels and many lodging-places, with a swelling population in the height of the season. Some of the island structures are unique—tall castles, palaces, imitations of iron-clads, forts and turrets—and many have been very costly. As most of the summer residents are Americans, those cottages are chiefly on the American side of the boundary, but there is also quite a group of island cottages over near the Canadian shore adjacent to the village of Gananoque. Alexandria Bay is a diminutive indentation in the New York shore, with a little red lighthouse out in front, while over to the northeast is spread a galaxy of the most famous islands, having fifty or more pretentious cottages scattered about the scene, amid the green foliage surmounting the rocky island foundations. In every direction go off channels among them of sparkling, dancing, green water, giving fine vista views, the dark crags at the water's edge underlying the frame of green foliage bounding the picture. The population has an aquatic flavor, and everybody seems to go about in boats, while the place has the air of a purely pleasure resort, evidently frozen up and hybernating when the tide of summer travel ebbs. In the season, the village presents a nightly carnival with its many-colored lights and dazzling fireworks displays over the rippling waters. For miles below Alexandria Bay, the islands stud the waters, although not so numerous nor so closely together as they are above. The largest of these is the long and narrow Grenadier Island in mid-river. Farther down they are usually small, some being only isolated rocks almost awash. The last of the islands are at Brockville, twenty-five miles below Alexandria Bay—the group of "Three Sisters," one large and two smaller, apparently dropped into the river opposite the town as if intended to support the piers of a bridge over to Morristown on the New York shore. This is an old and quiet Canadian town of nine thousand people, perpetuating the memory of General Sir Isaac Brock, who fell in the battle of Queenston Heights in October, 1812, and which is developing into a summer resort. Such is the charmed archipelago of attractive islands, unlike almost anything else in America, which brings so many pleasure and health seekers to the St. Lawrence to sing its praises:

SHOOTING THE RAPIDS.

Ogdensburg is an active port on the St. Lawrence about twenty miles below Brockville, having a railroad through the Adirondacks over to Rouse's Point on Lake Champlain. Here flow in the dark-brown waters of the Oswegatchie, the Indian "Black River," coming out of those forests, which commingle in sharp contrast with the clear green current of the greater river. Prescott, antiquated and time-worn, is on the Canadian bank. The shores are generally low, with patches of woodland and farms, and the St. Lawrence below Ogdensburg begins to go down the rapids, having tranquil lakes and long wide stretches of placid waters intervening. The first rapid is the "Galop," flowing among flat grass-covered islands, with swift moving waters, but a small affair, scarcely discernible as the steamboat goes through it. The next one, the "Plat," is also passed without much trouble, and then a line of whitecaps ahead indicates the beginning of the "Long Sault," the most extensive rapid on the river. This is the "Long Leap," a rapid running for nine miles, its waters rushing down the rocky ledges at a speed of twenty miles an hour. All steam is shut off, and the river steamer is carried along by the movement of the seething, roaring current, the surface appearing much like the ocean in a storm. The rocking, sinking deck beneath one's feet gives a strange and startling sensation, and looking back at the incline down which the boat is sliding, it seems like a great angry wall of water chasing along from behind. An elongated island divides the channel through the "Long Sault," and there are other low islands adjacent; the boat, swaying among the rocks over which the waves leap in fury, being now lifted on their crests, and then dropped between them, but all the while gliding down hill, until still water and safety are reached at Cornwall. Here begins the northern boundary of New York, which goes due east through the Chateaugay forests across the land to Lake Champlain, and large factories front the river, getting their power from the waters above the rapid.

Below Cornwall, which has an industrial population of some seven thousand, and the Indian village of St. Regis opposite, the St. Lawrence is wholly within Canada, and far off to the southeast rise the dark and distant Adirondack ranges. Soon the river broadens into the sluggish Lake St. Francis, at the head of which two well-known Adirondack streams flow in, the Racquette and St. Regis Rivers. The ancient village of St. Regis has its old church standing up conspicuously with a bright tin roof, for the air is so dry that tin is not painted in the Dominion. The bell hanging in the spire was sent out from France for the early Indian mission, but before landing, the vessel carrying it was captured by a colonial privateer and taken into Salem, Massachusetts. The bell, with other booty from the prize, was sold and sent to a church in Deerfield, then on the Massachusetts frontier. The St. Regis Huron Indians heard of this, and making a long march down there, recaptured their bell, massacred forty-seven people, and carried all the rest who could not escape, one hundred and twenty of them, including the church pastor and his family, captives back to Canada. Thus they brought the bell in triumph to St. Regis, and it has since hung undisturbed in the steeple, although the Indians who now hear it have become very few. The lake is twenty-eight miles long and very monotonous, although a distinguishing landmark is furnished by the massive buildings of St. Aniset Church, seen from afar on the southern shore.

Coteau, at the end of the lake, has a railway swinging drawbridge, carrying the Canada Atlantic Railroad over, and below is another series of rapids. These are the "Coteau," with about two miles of swift current, making but slight impression; and then the "Cedars," "Split Rock," and the "Cascades." The "Cedars" give a sensation, being composed of layers of rock down which the boat slides, as if settling from one ledge suddenly down to another, producing a curious feeling. It was here, in 1759, that General Amherst, by a sad mishap, had three hundred troops drowned. The "Split Rock" rapid is named from enormous boulders standing at its entrance, and a dangerous reef can be distinctly seen from the deck as the steamer apparently runs directly upon it, until the pilot swerves the boat aside, seemingly just in time. Then, tossing for a few moments upon the white-crested waves of the "Cascades," the steamer glides peacefully upon the tranquil surface of Lake St. Louis, which is fifteen miles long, and receives from the north the Ottawa River. Each little village on the banks of the lake and rivers is conspicuous from the large Roman Catholic Church around which it clusters, the steep bright tin roof and spire far out-topping all the other buildings. At the lower end of the lake a series of light-ships guide vessels into Lachine Canal, which goes down to Montreal, avoiding Lachine rapids, three miles long, the shortest series, but most violent of them all. Here, at the head of the rapids, stood the early French explorer, sent out to search for "the road to Cathay," and looking over the great lake spread out before him, with a view like old ocean, he shouted "La Chine!" for he thought that China was beyond it. The Canadian Pacific Railway bridge spans the river, and skirting the southern shore is the Indian town of Caughnawaga, with its little old houses and light stone church, the "village on the rapids." The steamboat then slides down Lachine rapids, the most difficult and dangerous passage of all, though it lasts but a few minutes—the exciting inclined plane of water, with rocks ahead and rocks beneath, indicated by swift and foaming cataracts running over and between them, and by stout thumps against the keel, sometimes making every timber shiver, and the apparent danger giving keen zest to the termination of the voyage. These rapids passed, the current below quickly floats the steamboat under the great Victoria tubular bridge, carrying the Grand Trunk Railway over, and the broad stone quays of Montreal are spread along the bank, with rank after rank of noble buildings behind them, and the tall twin towers of Notre Dame Cathedral rising beyond, glistening under the rays of the setting sun.

THE CITY OF MONTREAL.

The delta of the great Ottawa—the "river of the traders," as the Indians named it, debouching by several mouths into the St. Lawrence, of which it is the chief tributary, makes a number of islands, and Montreal stands on the southeastern side of the largest of them, with the broad river flowing in front. St. Mary's current runs strongly past the quays, and out there are the pretty wooded mounds of St. Helen's Island, named after Helen Boullé, the child-wife of Samuel de Champlain, the first European woman who came to Canada. She was only twelve years old when he married her, he being aged forty-four, and after his death she became an Ursuline nun. The miles of city water-front are superbly faced with long-walled quays of solid limestone masonry, and marked by jutting piers enclosing basins for the protection of the shipping against the powerful current. At the extremities of the rows of shipping, on either hand, up and down stream, loom the huge grain elevators. The piers are about ten feet lower than the walled embankment fronting the city, this being done to allow the ice to pass over them when it breaks up at the end of winter, the movement—called the "Ice Shove"—being an imposing sight. The elongated Victoria Bridge stands upon its row of gray limestone piers guarding the horizon up-river to the southward. Many storehouses and stately buildings rise behind the wharves, and beyond these are myriads of steeples, spires and domes, with the lofty Notre Dame towers in front. The background is made by the imposing mountain giving Montreal its name, called Mont Real originally, and now known as Mount Royal, rising to an elevation of nine hundred feet. Few cities of its size can boast so many fine buildings. The excellent building-stone of the neighborhood, a gray limestone, is utilized extensively, and this adds to the ornamental appearance, the city rising upon a series of terraces stretching back from the river and giving many good sites for construction. Numerous, massive and elaborate, the multitude of costly houses devoted to religion, trade and private residences are both a surprise and a charm. Mount Royal, rising boldly behind them, gives not only a noble background to the view from the river, but also a grand point of outlook, displaying their beauties to the utmost. The city has wide streets, generally lined with trees, and various public squares adding to the attractiveness.

But the most prominent characteristic of the Canadian metropolis is the astonishing number of its convents, churches, and pious houses for religious and charitable uses. Churches are everywhere, built by all denominations, many being most elaborate and costly. The religious zeal of the community, holding all kinds of ecclesiastical belief, has found special vent in the universal development of church building. This commendable trait is their natural heritage, for the earliest French settlements on the St. Lawrence were largely due to religious zeal. When Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence upon his second voyage in 1535, he heard from the Indians at Quebec of a greater town far up the river, and bent upon exploration, he sailed in boats up to the Iroquois settlement of Hochelaga. Wrapped in forests behind it rose the great mountain which he named Mont Real, the "royal mountain," and in front, encompassed with corn-fields, was the Indian village, surrounded by triple rows of palisades. Landing, Cartier's party were admitted within the defensive walls to the central public square, where the squaws examined them with the greatest curiosity, and the sick and lame Indians were brought up to be healed, the ancient historian writes, "as if a god had come down among them." No sooner had Cartier landed and been thus welcomed than he gave thanks to Heaven, and the warriors sat in silence while he read aloud the Passion of Our Lord, though they understood not a word. The religious services over, he distributed presents, and the French trumpeters sounded a warlike melody, vastly pleasing the Indians. They conducted Cartier's party to the summit of the mountain and showed them an extensive view over unbroken forests for many miles to the dark Adirondacks far away and the distant lighter green mountains, which he called the "Monts Verts," to the eastward. There is a tablet placed in Metcalfe Street near Sherbrooke Street which marks the supposed site of the Indian village of Hochelaga. In 1608, when Champlain came, Hochelaga had disappeared. The fierce Hurons had destroyed the village and driven out the Iroquois, who had gone far south to the Mohawk Valley.

For three-quarters of a century the French seem to have waited after Cartier's voyages, before they made any serious attempt at settlement. Then there came a great religious revival, and they planned to combine religion and conquest in a series of expeditions in the early seventeenth century under the auspices of patron saints and sinners whose names are numerously reproduced in the nomenclature of Quebec Province, in mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, capes, counties, towns and streets. It was chiefly due to Champlain, however, that the French foothold was obtained. This great explorer, known as the "Father of Canada," was noted alike for personal bravery and religious fervor. His occupations in the New World were perilous journeys, prayers and fighting. He firmly planted the French race in America, and every characteristic then given "New France," as Canada was called, remains to-day in the Province of Quebec. His noted saying is preserved in the Canadian chronicles, that "the salvation of one soul is of more importance than the founding of a new empire." His system was to take possession for the Church and the French king, and then erect a cross and a chapel, around which the colony grew. During the half-century succeeding Champlain's first voyage, many Recollet and Jesuit missionary priests came over, traversing the country and making converts among the Indians, so that there were established settlements, half-religious and half-military, forming alliances with the neighboring Huron and Algonquin Indians, and ultimately waging the almost perpetual wars with their English and Iroquois foes to the southward. Champlain, in 1608, founded Quebec, where Cartier had previously discovered the Indian village of Stadacona, meaning the "narrowing of the river." Champlain also, in subsequent voyages, discovered Lakes Champlain, Ontario and Nipissing.

RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.

The original settlement of Montreal was probably the most completely religious enterprise of the many early French colonizing expeditions to Canada. Dauversière, a tax-gatherer of Anjou, was a religious devotee whose constant scourging with small chains and other torments, including a belt with more than twelve hundred sharp points, filled his father confessor with admiration. One day while at his devotions, an inward voice commanded him to found a new order of hospital nuns, and establish at the island called Mont Real in Canada a hospital or Hotel-Dieu for these nuns to conduct. But Mont Real being a wilderness where the hospital would be without patients, the island must be colonized to supply them, and the pious tax-gatherer was sorely perplexed. There was in Paris a young priest, Jean Jacques Olier, who was zealous and devout, and signalized his piety by much self-mortification, and one day while praying in church he thought he heard a voice from Heaven saying he was destined to be a light to the Gentiles, and that he was to form a society of priests and establish them on the island called Mont Real, in Canada, for the propagation of the true Faith. The old writers solemnly aver that both these men were totally ignorant of each other and of Canadian geography, yet they suddenly found themselves possessed, they knew not how, of the most exact details concerning the island, its size, shape, soil, productions, climate and situation; and they subsequently saw apparitions of the Virgin and the Saviour encouraging them in the great work. Dauversière went to Paris seeking aid to carry out his task, and met Olier in a chateau in the suburbs; the two men, who never before had seen or heard of each other, became at once familiar, and under holy inspiration fondly embraced each other; the tax-gatherer received communion at the hands of the priest; and then for three hours they walked together in the park forming their plans. They determined, as the pious chronicler records it, to "plant the banner of Christ in an abode of desolation and a haunt of demons, and to this end a band of priests and women were to invade the wilderness and take post between the fangs of the Iroquois." They believed in the mystic number, three, and proposed to found three religious communities—one of secular priests to direct the colonists and convert the Indians, one of nuns to nurse the sick, and one of nuns to teach the Faith to all the children, white and red.

But money and men and women were necessary for the work. Soon, four others were found who had wealth, and the six formed the germ of the "Society of Notre Dame de Montreal," and among them seventy-five thousand livres were raised, equal to about as many dollars. They purchased the island, and their grant was confirmed by the king, and then they got together a colony of forty men, and needing a soldier-governor, Providence provided such a man in Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout and valiant gentleman who had kept his faith intact, notwithstanding long service among the heretics of Holland, and loving his profession of arms, wished to consecrate his sword to the Church. The interest of the women was awakened, and ultimately the Society was increased to about forty-five persons, chosen for their devotion and their wealth. Among the women who founded the new colony was Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, who was about thirty-four years of age when the Society was organized, and to whom we are told that Christ had appeared in a vision at the early age of seven years, and at the same tender age her biographer says she had bound herself to God by a vow of perpetual chastity. Mlle. Mance, by the divine inspiration, was filled with a longing to go to Canada, and she went to the port of Rochelle seeking a vessel. She had never before heard of Dauversière, but by supernatural agencies she met him coming out of church, had a long conversation in which she learned his plan, declared she had found her destiny in "the ocean, the wilderness, the solitude, the Iroquois," and at once decided to go with Maisonneuve and his party.

In February, 1641, with the Abbé Olier at their head, all the associates of the Society assembled in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, before the altar of the Virgin, and by a most solemn ceremonial consecrated Mont Real to the Holy Family. It was henceforth to be a sacred town, called "Ville Marie de Montreal," and consecrated respectively, the Seminary of priests to Christ, the Hotel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the Nuns' College to the Virgin. Subsequently to the colonization there appeared, in 1653, as the head of the latter, a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys, a woman of most excellent good sense and a warm heart, who is described as having known neither miracles, ecstasies nor trances, her religion being of the affections and manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty. Late in the year the colony under Maisonneuve set sail, arriving too late, however, to ascend the St. Lawrence above Quebec, where they wintered. Here the Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, tried his best to dissuade them from going farther, desiring them to settle at Quebec, but Maisonneuve said, "It is my duty and my honor to found a colony at Montreal, and I would go if every tree were an Iroquois!" Here they gained an unexpected recruit in Madame de la Peltrie, foundress of the Order of Ursulines at Quebec, who abandoned their convent and carried off all the furniture she had lent them. In May, 1642, the party left Quebec in a flotilla of boats, deep laden with men, arms and stores, and a few days later approached Montreal island, when all on board raised a hymn of praise. Montmagny, who was to deliver possession of the island, was with them, and also Father Vimont, Superior of the missions, for the Jesuits had been invited to take spiritual charge of the young colony. On May 18, 1642, they landed at Montreal, at a spot where a little creek then flowed into the St. Lawrence, making a good landing-place, protected from the influence of the swift current of the river. There was a bordering meadow, and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. The triangular graystone building, which is now the Custom House, down by the river, marks this spot where the city was founded. The historian Parkman, who has so faithfully delved into the ancient Canadian archives, thus relates the story of the original settlement:

"Maisonneuve sprang ashore and fell on his knees. His followers imitated his example, and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms and stores were landed. An altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant Charlotte Barré, decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders. Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont in the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall, his men clustering around him,—soldiers, sailors, artisans and laborers,—all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was over the priest turned and addressed them: 'You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its branches overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the work of God. His smile is on you, and your children shall fill the land.' The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and twilight came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow. They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung them before the altar where the Host remained exposed. Then they pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards, and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal." Thus was piously planted the "grain of mustard-seed" of the devout and enthusiastic Vimont, which has expanded into a great city of probably three hundred thousand people, over half of them French and more than three-fourths Catholics, there being also a large Irish population.

MONTREAL INSTITUTIONS.

Montreal covers a surface five miles long by two miles wide, and its situation gives it great commercial importance. The people call it "the Queen of the St. Lawrence," standing at the head of ship navigation, where cargoes are exchanged with the internal canal and lake navigation system, the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway crossing the continent, and both also having many connections with the United States. In 1809, the "Accommodation," the second steamboat in America, was built in Montreal, and began running to Quebec. The lion of Montreal is the Victoria Tubular Bridge, which was formally opened by the Prince of Wales on his American visit in 1860. It was designed by Robert Stephenson and built by James Hodges at a cost of over $6,000,000. It is nearly ninety-two hundred feet long and stands upon twenty-six piers and abutments, the centre being about sixty feet above the summer level of the river, which flows beneath at the rate of seven miles an hour. Elaborate ice-fenders are on the up-stream side of the piers, there being an enormous ice-pressure when the spring freshets are running. It is the greatest bridge in the Dominion, and near it stands a huge boulder, marking the burial-place of the army of Irish emigrants who came over in 1847, sixty-five hundred dying at Montreal of ship-fever.

The Sulpician Order has always been the great educator of priests in all French-speaking peoples, and it was founded by the Abbé Olier. Carrying out his intention, the "Seminary of St. Sulpice" was opened in Montreal in 1647. This is now an enormous and prosperous religious establishment, holding large possessions in and around the city. The "Gentlemen of the Seminary," as the members of the Order of Sulpicians are called in Montreal, are the successors of the first owners of the island, and they conduct a large secular business as landlords. Down in the heart of the old city, at the Place d'Armes, they have an antique quadrangle, surrounding a quiet garden, which is the official headquarters, and was the location of their ancient house. The curious French-looking towers fronting the Seminary were at one time loop-holed for musketry, and were garrisoned, when necessary, to beat off Indian raids upon the infant settlement. In the western suburbs there is a broad domain, known as the "Priests' Farm," where are an elaborate mass of buildings, making their present noted foundation, the "Great Seminary" and Montreal College, the former for the education of priests and the latter for the general education of youth, the delicious surrounding gardens being regarded as the finest on the fertile island.

The "Hospital of the Hotel-Dieu de Ville Marie" is on the northeastern edge of the city, almost under the shadow of the mountain, and is one of the largest buildings in Canada, its dome rising one hundred and fifty feet over the spacious chapel. It was in this hospital, when first founded in a small way in 1647, that Mademoiselle Mance took up her abode. There are now over five hundred persons in the building, and it is conducted by eighty cloistered nuns, who never go outside the grounds. They are of the Order of St. Joseph, caring for the sick, the orphan, and the old and infirm. The "Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame," the "Black Nuns," as they are called, have their Mother House in Montreal, this being the teaching order founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1653, she having then come out to Canada with Maisonneuve on his second voyage. "To this day," writes Parkman, "in crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal." These "Black Nuns" conduct seventeen schools in the city, with over five thousand pupils. Their most extensive establishment is just out of town, on what are known as the "Monk Lands," and is called "Ville Marie." There are no less than six hundred nuns and novices in this order, and their pupils number twenty thousand in Canada and the United States.

Another important Montreal institution is the "General Hospital of the Grey Sisters," popularly known as the "Grey Nunnery," occupying an extensive array of stone buildings in the southwestern part of the city. This order was first founded in 1692, but languished for nearly a half century, when a pious Canadian lady took it up. Originally it cared for the aged and infirm, but in 1755 this lady, Madame de Youville, discovered the body of a murdered infant, where is now Foundling Street, then a stream of water, into which the child had been thrown, and this led her to extend the objects of the institution so as to embrace orphans and foundlings. This is the great foundling hospital of Montreal. The order has the revenues of large estates, and there are about four hundred nuns and novices, over half being detailed in a large number of establishments throughout Canada. Several hundred foundlings are received every year, and over five hundred patients are cared for in Montreal, mostly the aged and infirm. The daughter of Ethan Allen, of Vermont, was a nun of this order, dying in 1819. This nunnery has many visitors, who attend worship with the Sisters in the beautiful chapel, and then go through the hospital, where the poor are cared for both in the morning and the evening of life. The crowds of little French children, dressed in the curious clothing of past centuries, sing for their visitors, and then comically scramble for the small coins tossed among them, which, after doing duty as playthings for a brief time, find their way into the charity box.

Montreal is the headquarters in America of the well-known teaching order of the Christian Brothers. The Jesuits have St. Mary's College; and the Convent of the Sacred Heart and Hochelaga Convent, the Asylum of the Sisters of Providence and the Convent of the Good Shepherd are also prominent. The chief Protestant educational institution is McGill University, with a thousand students and seventy-five instructors, originally founded in 1821, through a bequest of $150,000, by James McGill, a native of Glasgow, who was one of the early successful merchants of Montreal. It has since been richly endowed, its properties being valued at over $1,000,000, and it has fine buildings and grounds near the mountain. Closely affiliated is the Presbyterian College of Montreal, devoted to the training of missionaries and clergymen, also provided with noble buildings. There is also a Wesleyan Theological College affiliated with McGill University. The peculiar religious conditions of Quebec Province have vested the educational management of the public schools in two Boards, one Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, separately governing each class of schools, and working in harmony under the Provincial Superintendent of Education, each Board having an office in Montreal.

MONTREAL CHURCHES AND BUILDINGS.

The Place d'Armes, down in the old part of the city, where is the original Seminary of St. Sulpice, is surrounded by famous structures. Here are the chief banks and insurance buildings and the head office of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The most noted of them is the Grecian-fronted Bank of Montreal, the largest financial institution in Canada, and believed, with the Canadian Pacific management, who are closely connected, to be the most potential force in the Dominion. Adjoining the old Seminary, and facing the square, is Montreal's most famous church—Notre Dame—its lofty front rising into the twin spires that overlook all the country round. Its pews seat ten thousand, and when crowded it accommodates fifteen thousand people. In one of the towers hangs "Le Gros Bourdon," the largest bell in America, called Jean Baptiste, and weighing nearly fifteen tons. The church is mediæval Gothic, built of cut limestone, the spires rising two hundred and twenty-seven feet, and containing ten bells, making a chime upon which, on great occasions, tunes are played. The interior, like all the French Catholic churches, is brilliantly decorated, for the religious development is the same as that of France in the seventeenth century, everything contributing to the intensity of the devotion and the elaborateness of decoration and paraphernalia of the service. At High Mass, when crowded by worshippers, the choir filled with robed ecclesiastics officiating in the stately ceremonial, the effect is imposing. The original church of Notre Dame was built in 1671, a long, low structure with a high pitched roof. It was pulled down in 1824 and replaced by the present church, which was five years building, and is one of the largest churches in America, two hundred and fifty-five feet long. We are told that the architect, James O'Donnell, who is buried in the crypt, was a Protestant, but during the work became so impressed by his religious surroundings that he was converted to a Roman Catholic. The church is never closed, and at any time one can enter, and with the silent worshippers kneel at the shrine in a solemn stillness, in sharp contrast with the activity of the business quarter without. This remarkable contrast deeply impressed the ascetic Thoreau, whose boast was that he never attended church. "I soon found my way to the Church of Notre Dame," he writes. "I saw that it was of great size and signified something. Coming from the hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed back the listed door of this church and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. It was a great cave in the midst of a city, and what were the altars and the tinsel but the sparkling stalactites into which you entered in a moment, and where the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays." When General Montgomery's American army captured Montreal in 1775, the square in front of Notre Dame was his parade-ground, and thus it got the name of Place d'Armes.

The greatest church of Montreal is the new Cathedral of St. James, popularly known as St. Peter's, as yet incomplete, designed to reproduce, on a scale of one-half the dimensions, the grand Basilica at Rome. It is three hundred and thirty-three feet long, the transepts two hundred and twenty-five feet wide, and the stone dome two hundred and fifty feet high, making it the largest church in Canada. Four huge stone piers, each thirty-six feet thick, and thirty-two Corinthian columns, support this grand dome. The outside walls, built of the universal gray limestone, are massive but rough, and the roof, on account of the heavy snows, is sloping, but otherwise it reproduces all the special features of St. Peter's at Rome, including the portico, to be surmounted by colossal statues of the Apostles. The interior is being decorated with brilliant paintings representing scenes in the life of St. James. It is located on Dominion Square, and the Bishop's Palace adjoins it. One of the remarkable churches, though small, is Notre Dame de Lourdes, built and adorned with the single idea of expressing in visible form the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, with the appearance of the Virgin to the maiden in the grotto at Lourdes. It is superbly decorated, and is the only church of the kind in America, being well described as "like an illuminated Missal, which to a Protestant has interest as a work of art, and to a Catholic has the superadded interest of a work of devotion." Adjoining the Jesuit St. Mary's College is their solid stone Church of the Gesu, its lofty nave bounded by rich columns, and with the long transepts adorned by fine frescoes, some giving representations of scenes in Jesuit history and martyrdom. The great Episcopal Cathedral of Christ Church, a Latin cross in Early English architecture, reproduces the Salisbury Cathedral of England, with a spire two hundred and twenty-four feet high. There are also many other fine Protestant churches; and when it is realized that Montreal has a church for about every two thousand inhabitants, the care for its religious welfare will be realized. The Royal Victoria Hospital, a gift to the city in honor of the Queen's Jubilee, cost $1,000,000.

The largest public square in the city is the Champ de Mars, formerly a parade-ground, adjoining which are two noble public buildings, the handsome Court-house, three hundred feet long, and the adjacent Hotel de Ville, nearly five hundred feet long. The Victoria Skating Rink, the largest in the world, is the most noted amusement structure. The city is noted for athletic sports, and toboggan slides abound, some of enormous length, down the mountain slopes. The Montreal Bonsecours Market is famed everywhere, and presents an imposing Doric front nearly five hundred feet long upon the river bank, surmounted by a domed tower. Here gather in force the French Canadian peasantry, known as the habitans, to sell their produce and wares, and it gives a quaint exhibition of old-time French customs. The ancient Church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours is alongside, originally founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1673 for the reception of a miraculous statue of the Virgin, entrusted to her by one of the associates of the Society founding Montreal, Baron de Faucamp. The church was burnt and then rebuilt in 1771, and is a quaint structure of a style rarely seen outside of Normandy, having shops built up against it after the fashion common in old European towns. Thus does this famous city combine the methods and styles of the Middle Ages with the manners and enterprises of to-day. It is an impressive fact that notwithstanding the prodigious religious development, all the denominations get on without friction. There is an underlying spirit of toleration, and it is recorded that after the British conquest of Canada the Protestants who came into Montreal occupied one of the Catholic churches for worship, assembling after the Catholic morning mass; and that for twenty years after 1766 the Church of England people occupied the Catholic church of the Recollets every Sunday afternoon. The Presbyterians are said to have also used the same church prior to 1792, and then having removed into a church of their own, they presented the priests of the Recollet church a gift of candles for the high altar and of wine for the mass as a token of good will and their thanks for the gratuitous use of the church. Then the churches were few, but now all denominations have their own, and numerously.

MONTREAL SURROUNDINGS.

The suburbs are attractive, and gradually dissolve into the gardens and farms of the French husbandmen, living in comfortable houses with steep roofs, fronted by and sometimes almost embedded in foliage and flowers. Occasionally an ancient windmill is perched on a hill, stretching out its broad gyrating sails, as in old Normandy. There are frequent villages along the St. Lawrence, each clustered around its church. At Caughnawaga, already referred to, there is an extensive church with a tall and shining white tin-covered spire, and in a rather sorry-looking group of houses around it live the few who are left of the descendants of the once warlike and powerful Mohawks, known as the "praying Indians," here long ago gathered by the zealous missionary priests of St. Sulpice. At Lachine, spreading opposite on the western shore of the St. Lawrence for several miles, is a popular place of suburban residence, with rows of pleasant villas lining the banks of Lake St. Louis. Over beyond this lake comes in the main channel of Ottawa River, with the rapids of St. Anne flowing down from another inland sea made by its prolonged enlargement, the "Lake of the Two Mountains." A canal flanks these rapids, and the village of St. Anne has grown around its ancient church, which is deeply reverenced by the Canadian boatmen and voyageurs on these waters as their special shrine, for in the early days all the fur-trading with the great Canadian northwest was by canoes and bateaux on the Ottawa and Lake Nipissing, and thence by portage to Lake Huron. Here came many years ago, on a bateau down the St. Lawrence, the minstrel bard, Tom Moore, and inspired by the locality, he composed in a cottage, still pointed out, his noted "Canadian Boat Song":

On the northern shore of the "Lake of the Two Mountains," with Oka village nestling at the base, where an Indian colony live, are the two mountains from which the lake is named. One, surmounted by a cross, is Mount Calvary, having various religious shrines on its summit, and seven chapels on the road up, representing the seven stations of the cross. Here is also a monastery of the French "farmer Monks," the Trappists, who cultivate a large surface. They live a secluded life under ascetic rules, are not allowed to talk to each other, and only men enter the monastery, all women being stopped at the threshold. They rise at two o'clock in the morning, take breakfast soon afterwards in absolute silence, this being the only meal of the day, and retire to rest immediately after prayers at sunset. They devote twelve hours daily to devotions, and labor in the fields the remainder of the waking time. Their food is a scant allowance of water and vegetables. They sleep on a board with a straw pillow, and never undress, even in sickness. They are a branch of the Cistercians, and their abode overlooks the placid lake, with Montreal spreading beyond. But the city's finest suburban possession is its Mountain, the summit being a pleasant park, and the slopes covered with luxuriant foliage, which in the autumn becomes a blazing mass of resplendent beauty when the frosts turn the leaves. From the top the view is of unrivalled magnificence.

THE GRAND RIVER.

The Ottawa River is the most important tributary of the St. Lawrence, over seven hundred miles long, and draining a basin of one hundred thousand square miles, the most productive pine-timber region existing. It was the "Grand River" of the early French-Canadian voyageurs, and the name of Ottawa, changed considerably from the original form, comes from the Indian tribe and means "the traders." It has a circuitous course; rising in Western Quebec province, it flows northwest and then west for three hundred miles to Lake Temiscamingue, on the border of Ontario province; then it turns and flows back southeastward, making the boundary between the provinces for four hundred miles, until it falls into the St. Lawrence, the vast volume of its dark waters pressing the latter's blue current against the farther shore. It is a romantic river, filled with rapids and cascades, at times broadening into lakes, and again contracted into a torrent barely fifty yards wide, where the waters are precipitated over the rocks in wild splendor. For twenty-five miles above its mouth it broadens into the "Lake of the Two Mountains," from one to six miles wide. Above the city of Ottawa there are rapids terminating in the famous Chaudière Falls, where the waters plunge down forty feet, and part are said to disappear through an underground passage of unknown outlet. It has an enormous lumber trade, and by a canal system, avoiding the rapids, has been made navigable for two hundred and fifty miles. The Rideau River enters from the south at Ottawa, making the route by which the Rideau Canal goes over to Lake Ontario at Kingston. The Gatineau River also flows in at Ottawa, being of great volume, over four hundred miles long, and a prolific timber producer. In the villages around Montreal all the saints in the calendar are named, so that, starting on an exploration of Ottawa River, the route goes by St. Martin, St. Jean, St. Rose, St. Therese, St. Jerome, St. Lin, St. Eustache, St. Augustine, St. Scholastique, St. Hermes, St. Phillippe, and many more. But when the great religious city is left behind the saints cease to appear, and everything in the Ottawa valley above is generally otherwise named. This valley is usually a broad and level intervale, with only an occasional rocky buttress pressing upon the river. At one of these passes, in 1660, a handful of valiant men held the stockade at Carillon, the foot of Long Sault rapids, sacrificing their lives to save the early colony from the Indians, the place being known as the "French Canadian Thermopylæ." The full force of the Iroquois warriors were in arms up the Ottawa, over a thousand of them, threatening to drive the French out of Montreal. Dollard des Ormeaux and sixteen companions took the sacrament in the little Montreal church, made their wills, and bound themselves by an oath neither to give nor take quarter. A few Algonquins joined them, and going up the river they hastily built a stockaded fort at this pass. Soon the Iroquois canoes came dancing down the rapids, and discovering the fort, they surrounded and attacked it, but were repulsed day after day, until every one of the brave garrison had been killed, when the Iroquois had lost so many of their own warriors that they tired of the fighting, and avoiding Montreal, returned southward to their own country. Some fugitive Indians told the heroic story, which George Murray has woven into his ballad:

Some distance above, at the Chateau Montebello, lived in the early nineteenth century Louis Joseph Papineau, the "French-Canadian O'Connell," the seigneur of the district, who was the local leader in resistance to English aggressions, of whom the French are very proud, and his portrait hangs in the Parliament House at Ottawa. He was defeated, banished and then pardoned, and lived here to a ripe old age to see many of the reforms and privileges for which he had contended fully realized under subsequent administrations. The Riviere aux Lièvres rushes into the Ottawa down a turbulent cascade, through which logs dash until caught in the booms at the sawmills below, where are vast lumber piles. This river is two hundred and eighty miles long, and just above its mouth has a fall at Buckingham of seventy feet, giving an enormous water-power. The whole region hereabout is devoted to lumbering. The French habitan from Lower Quebec comes up into this wilderness of woods with scarcely any capital but his axe, in the use of which he is expert. These Canadians do not like leaving their homes, but are compelled by sheer necessity. When the old Quebec farm has been subdivided among the children, under the French system, until the long, ribbon-like strips of land become so narrow between the fences that there is no opportunity for further sub-division, the young men must seek a livelihood elsewhere. The old man gives them a blessing, with a good axe and two or three dollars, and they start for the lumber camps. They catch abundant fish, can live on almost nothing, and need only buy their flour and salt, with some pork for a luxury. These lumbermen often wear picturesque costumes like the old voyageurs, and they like flaming red scarfs. They are as polite as the most courtly French gentleman, and pass their evenings in dancing, with music and singing the ancient songs of their forefathers, scorning anything modern. Many of them are Metis, or half-breeds, the descendants of French and Indians. These are more heavy featured and not so sprightly as the pure French, but they are equally skillful woodmen, and have inherited many good traits from both races, though they rather regard with pity their full-blooded Indian half-brothers, whose lot is scarcely as favorable. All these people are devout Catholics, and going up into the woods in the late autumn and remaining until after Easter, the priests always visit their camps to attend to their spiritual wants. An impressive scene in these vast forests in the dawn of a cold winter morning is to see the priest standing with outstretched arms at the rude altar, the light of the candles revealing the earnest faces of his flock as they reverentially attend the mass. These woodmen are firm believers in the supernatural, convinced that the spirits of the dead come back in various shapes. If a single crow is seen they are sure a calamity has occurred; if two crows fly before them it means a wedding. An owl hooting indicates impending danger. They are always hearing strange voices at night, or seeing ominous shapes in the twilight wood shadows. The Metis are good hunters, and great is their joy when a belated bear is found near the camp, or a deer or moose is tracked in the snow. Their lumbering is done near the streams, so the logs may be thrown in and floated down by the spring freshets. They make a vast product of timber, sold throughout the lakes and St. Lawrence region, much going across the Atlantic.

THE DOMINION CAPITAL.

The earliest settler at the portage around the Chaudière Falls of the Ottawa was Philemon Wright, of Woburn, Massachusetts, who came along in 1800, and not getting on successfully, sold out about twenty years later to cancel a debt of $200. Subsequently there was established at the confluence of the three rivers, Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau, by Colonel By, a British military post and Indian trading-station, around which in time a settlement grew which was called Bytown, distant about a hundred miles from the St. Lawrence River. It was incorporated a city in 1854 by the name of Ottawa; and when the Dominion Confederation was formed in 1858 there was so much contention about the claims of rival cities to be the capital—Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Quebec all being urged—that Queen Victoria, to finally settle the matter, selected Ottawa. There is a population of about sixty thousand, but excepting from the noble location of the magnificent public buildings, the political importance of the city does not attract the visitor so much as the business development. The lumber trade makes the first and greatest impression; landing among boards and sawdust, walking amid timber piles and over wooden sidewalks, with slabs, blocks and planks everywhere in endless profusion, the rushing waters filled with floating logs and sawdust, busy saws running, planing-machines screeching, the canals carrying lumber cargoes, the rivers lined with acres of board piles—an idea is got of what the lumber trade of the Ottawa valley is. The timber is almost all white and yellow pine. Alongside the Chaudière Falls at the western verge of the town are clustered the great sawmills, while capacious slides shoot the logs down, which are to be floated farther along to the St. Lawrence. There are also large flour-mills and other factories getting power from this cataract.

Chaudière Falls, St. Lawrence

The Chaudière, or the "Cauldron," is a remarkable cataract, and the Indians were so terrified by it, that to propitiate its evil genius we are told they usually threw in a little tobacco before traversing the portage around it. The rapids begin about six miles above, terminating in this great boiling cauldron with a sheer descent of forty feet, which is as curious as it is grand. Owing to the peculiar formation of the enclosing rocks, all the waters of the broad river are converged into a sort of basin about two hundred feet wide, plunging in with vast commotion and showers of spray. Efforts have been made to sound this strange cauldron, but the lead has not found bottom at three hundred feet depth. The narrowness of the passage between the enclosing rocky walls, just below the falls, has enabled a bridge to be built across, connecting Ottawa with the suburb of Hull. Here is given an admirable view of the foaming, descending waters, clouds of spray, and at times gorgeous rainbows, flanked by timber piles and sawmills, sending out rushing streams of water and sawdust into the river below. Near by a chain of eight massive locks brings the Rideau Canal down through a fissure in the high bank to the level of the lower Ottawa, its sides being almost perpendicularly cut by the action of water in past ages. The locks are a Government work, of solid masonry, well built, and the fissure divides Ottawa into the Upper and the Lower Town, pretty bridges being thrown across it on the lines of the principal streets. The Rideau Canal follows the Rideau River upwards southwest to the Lake Ontario level, and in the whole distance of one hundred and twenty-six miles to Kingston, overcomes four hundred and forty-six feet by forty-seven locks. Much of the suburb of Hull and a considerable part of Ottawa, with enormous amounts of lumber, were destroyed by a great fire in April, 1900, a high wind fanning the flames that were spread by the inflammable materials.

Upon Barrack Hill, at an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet, surrounded by ornamental grounds, and having the Ottawa River flowing at the western base, stand the Government buildings. They are magnificent structures, costing nearly $4,000,000, the Prince of Wales having laid the corner-stone on his visit in 1860. They are built of cream-colored sandstone, with red sandstone and Ohio stone trimmings, the architecture being Italian Gothic, and they stand upon three sides of a grass-covered quadrangle, and occupy an area of four acres. They include the Parliament House, the chief building, and all the Dominion Government offices. The former is four hundred and seventy-two feet long, the other buildings on the east and west sides of the quadrangle being somewhat smaller. All are impressive, their great elevation enabling their towers and spires to be seen for many miles. The legislative chambers are richly furnished, and Queen Victoria's portrait is on the walls of one House, and those of King George III. and Queen Charlotte upon the other. The Parliamentary Library, a handsome polygonal structure of sixteen angles, adjoins. The Governor-General resides in Rideau Hall, across the Rideau River. From a little pavilion out upon the western edge of Barrack Hill, high above the Ottawa, there is a long view over the western and northern country, whence that river comes. To the left is the rolling land of Ontario province, and to the right the distant hills and looming blue mountains of Quebec, the river dividing them. Behind the pavilion is the stately Parliament House, its noble Victoria Tower, seen from afar, rising two hundred and twenty feet.

MONTREAL TO QUEBEC.

The broad St. Lawrence River flows one hundred and eighty miles from Montreal to Quebec. A succession of parishes is passed, each with its lofty church and presbytère, reproducing the picturesque buildings of old Normandy and Brittany, with narrow windows and steep roofs, all covered with shining white tin which the dry air preserves. Little villages cluster around the churches, with long stretches of arable lands between. Among a mass of wooded islands on the northern bank, the turbid waters of the lower Ottawa outlet flow in, the edge of the clearer blue of the St. Lawrence being seen for some distance below. The delta makes green alluvial islands and shoals. Thus we sail down the great river, past shores that were long ago very well settled.

In the eighteenth century, Kalm, a Swedish tourist in America, said it could be really called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, "for the farmhouses are never more than five arpents apart, and sometimes but three asunder, a few places excepted;" and two centuries ago a traveller on the river wrote that the houses "were never more than a gunshot apart." All the people are French, retaining the language and old customs, simple-minded and primitive, the same as under the ancient French régime, and excepting that one village, Varennes, has put two towers upon its stately church, all of them are exactly alike. It is recorded that in Champlain's time some Huguenot sailors came up the river piously singing psalm tunes. This did not please the officials, and soon a boat with soldiers put off from one of these villages, and the officer in charge told them that "Monseigneur, the Viceroy, did not wish that they should sing psalms on the great river." The first steamer that came along the St. Lawrence created unlimited dread, horrifying the villagers. Solemnly crossing himself, an old voyageur, who probably thought his trade on the waters endangered, exclaimed, in his astonishment, "But can you believe that the good God will permit all that?"

The Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, comes in at Sorel, the chief affluent on the southern bank, its canal system making a navigable connection with the Hudson River. Cardinal Richelieu took great interest in early Canadian colonization, and Fort Richelieu was built at the mouth of this river, being afterwards enlarged to prevent Iroquois forays, by Captain Sorel, whose name is preserved in the town. Below, there is an archipelago of low alluvial islands, and the St. Lawrence broadens out into Lake St. Peter, nine or ten miles wide, and generally shallow, this being the head of the tidal influence. On its southern side flows in the St. Francis River, the outlet of Lake Memphremagog and of many streams and lakes in the vast wilderness along the boundary north of Vermont and east of Lake Champlain. At its mouth is the little village of St. François du Lac. As the shores contract below Lake St. Peter, the town of Three Rivers is passed midway between Montreal and Quebec. Here the fine river St. Maurice, another great lumber-producing stream, flows in upon the northern bank, two little islands dividing its mouth into a delta of three channels, thus naming the town. The St. Maurice is full of rapids and cataracts, the chief being Shawanagan Fall, about twenty miles inland, noted for its grandeur and remarkable character. The river, suddenly bending and divided into two streams by a pile of rocks, falls nearly one hundred and fifty feet and dashes against an opposing wall, where the reunited stream forces its way through a narrow passage scarcely a hundred feet wide. The two lofty rocks bounding this abyss are called La Grande Mere and Le Bon Homme. The headwaters of St. Maurice interlock with some of those of the gloomy Saguenay north of Quebec. An enormous output of lumber comes down to Three Rivers, and the district also produces much bog iron ore. Here are extensive sawmills, iron-works, and one of the largest paper-pulp establishments in America, the unrivalled water-power being thus utilized. Below the St. Maurice, as the outcropping foothills from the Laurentian Mountains approach the river, the scenery becomes more picturesque. The Richelieu rapids are here, requiring careful navigation among the rocks, and Jacques Cartier River comes in from the north. In front of St. Augustin village, years ago, the steamer "Montreal" was burnt with a loss of two hundred lives, and on the outskirts is an ancient ruined church, which is said to have fallen in decay because the devil assisted at its building. This was in 1720, and the tradition is that His Satanic Majesty appeared in the form of a powerful black stallion, who hauled the blocks of stone, until his driver, halting at a watering-trough, where there was also a small receptacle of holy water for the faithful, unbridled the horse, who became suddenly restive and vanished in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Many pious pilgrimages are made to the present fine church of the village, having a statue of the guardian angel standing out in front, commemorating the Vatican Council of 1870. As Quebec is approached, the "coves" are seen on the northern shore, arranged with booms for the timber ships, for easier transfer of lumber from the rafts floated down the river, and the steep bluffs behind run off into Cape Diamond, projecting far across the stream. Old Sillery Church stands up with its tall spire atop of the bold bluff, with a monastery behind it. Here Noel Brulart de Sillery, Knight of Malta, in 1637, established one of the early Jesuit missions. Point Levis stretches from the southern bank to narrow the river channel. The low gray walls of the citadel surmount the highest point of the extremity of Cape Diamond, and rounding it, we are at Quebec.

ORIGIN OF QUEBEC.

Whence comes the name of Quebec? "Quel bec! Quel bec!"—(What a beak!)—shouted Jacques Cartier's astonished sailors, when, sailing up the St. Lawrence, they first beheld the startling promontory of Cape Diamond, thrust in towering majesty almost across the river. Thus, says one tradition, by a natural elision, was named Quebec, when the Europeans first saw the rock in 1535. Another derivation comes from Candebec on the Seine, which it much resembles. The Indian word "Kebic," meaning "the fearful rocky cliff," may have been its origin. The Indian village of Stadacona was here when Cartier found it, a cluster of wigwams fringing the shore in front of the bold cliff, its people bearing allegiance to the Montaignais chief, Donnacona. Here the ancient chronicle records that Cartier saw a "mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the raging current," and he planted the cross and lilies of France and took possession for his king. Returning to Europe, he took back as prisoners the chief, Donnacona, and several of his warriors, their arrival making a great sensation. They were fêted and prayed for, and becoming converted, were baptised with pomp in the presence of a vast assemblage in the magnificent Cathedral of Rouen. But the round of pleasure and feasting, with the excess of excitement, overcame these children of the forest, and they all died within a year. Colonization on the St. Lawrence, after Cartier's voyages, languished for seventy years, various ill-starred expeditions failing, and it was not until 1608 that the city of Quebec was really founded by Samuel de Champlain, who was sent out by a company of associated noblemen of France to establish a fur trade with the Indians and open a new field for the Church, the Roman Catholic religion being then in the full tide of enthusiasm which in the seventeenth century made what was known as the "counter reformation." Champlain built a fort and established the province of New France, but his colony was of slow growth. There subsequently came out the military and commercial adventurers and religious enthusiasts, who were the first settlers of the new empire. The Recollet Fathers came in 1615, and the Jesuit missionary priests in 1625 and subsequently. The famous Canadian bishop, Laval de Montmorency, Father Hennepin, and the Sieur de la Salle, all came out in the same ship at a later period. Thus was founded the great French Catholic power in North America.

The Church thoroughly ruled the infant colony of Quebec. In the fort, black-garbed Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at Champlain's table. Parkman says, "There was little conversation, but in its place, histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic refectory; prayers, masses and confessions followed each other with an edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night; godless soldiers caught the infection, and whipped themselves in penance for their sins; debauched artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition; Quebec was become a mission." Champlain died at Christmas, 1635, after a long illness, at the age of sixty-eight, the "Father of Canada," and Quebec was without a Governor for a half-year. Finally, the next summer, the Father Superior, Le Jeune, who had been directing affairs, espied a ship, and going down to the landing, was met by the new Governor, de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, with a long train of officers and gentlemen. We are told that "as they all climbed the rock together, Montmagny saw a crucifix planted by the path. He instantly fell on his knees before it; and nobles, soldiers, sailors and priests imitated his example. The Jesuits sang Te Deum at the church, and the cannon roared from the adjacent fort. Here the new Governor was scarcely installed, when a Jesuit came in to ask if he would be godfather to an Indian about to be baptized. 'Most gladly,' replied the pious Montmagny. He repaired on the instant to the convert's hut, with a company of gaily-apparelled gentlemen; and while the inmates stared in amazement at the scarlet and embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. Three days after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried, on which, leaving the lines of the new fortification he was tracing, he took in hand a torch, De Lisle, his lieutenant, took another, Repentigny and St. Jean, gentlemen of his suite, with a band of soldiers, followed, two priests bore the corpse, and thus all moved together in procession to the place of burial. The Jesuits were comforted. Champlain himself had not displayed a zeal so edifying." The spiritual power thus so zealously exerted thoroughly controlled Quebec, and its masterful force always continued.

THE FRENCH-CANADIAN MISSIONARIES.

Boundless was the power exerted when the religious envoys of this wonderful colony spread over the interior of America. When the heroic bishop Laval de Montmorency stood on the altar-steps of his Basilica at Quebec, he could wave his crozier over half a continent, from the island of St. Pierre Miquelon to the source of the Mississippi, and from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The Jesuits' College at Quebec was started in a small way as early as 1637, and from it, year after year, issued forth the dauntless missionaries, carrying the gospel out among the Indians for over three thousand miles into the interior, preaching the faith beyond the Mississippi, and down its valley, throughout Louisiana, many suffering death and martyrdom in its most cruel forms. Nowhere in the church annals exists a grander chapter than the record of these missionaries. Unarmed and alone, they travelled the unexplored continent, bravely meeting every horrible torture and lingering death inflicted by the vindictive savages, whom they went out to bless. The world was amazed at their sufferings and achievements. Even Puritan New England, we are told, received their envoy with honors, the apostle Eliot entertaining him at Roxbury parsonage, while Boston, Salem and Plymouth became his gracious hosts. These devoted men loved the new country. "To the Jesuits," we are told in their annals, "the atmosphere of Quebec was well-nigh celestial. In the climate of New France one learns perfectly to seek only one God; to have no desire but God; no purpose but for God. To live in New France is in truth to live in the bosom of God. If anyone of those who die in this country goes to perdition," writes Le Jeune, "I think he will be doubly guilty." For years old France sent over a multitude to reinforce these missions. They were urged on by rank, wealth and power in the great work of converting the heathen, and the noblest motives gave these missions life. Solitude, toil, privation, hardship and death were the early French missionary's portion, yet nothing made his zeal or courage flag. The saints and angels of their faith hovered around these Jesuit martyrs with crowns of glory and garlands of immortal bliss. It was no wonder that the French and Jesuit influence soon extended far beyond the mere circle of converts. It modified and softened the rude manners of many unconverted tribes. Parkman, from whom I have already quoted, records that "in the wars of the next century we do not often find those examples of diabolic atrocity with which the earlier annals are crowded. The savage burned his enemies alive, it is true, but he seldom ate them; neither did he torment them with the same deliberation and persistency. He was a savage still, but not so often a devil."

The French missionary priests survived the period of torture and trial, and became, in fact, the revered rulers of many of the Indian tribes. They thoroughly assimilated and learned the languages. The priest, regarded with awe and affection, knew so much, and was so skillful as counsellor and physician, that the untutored savage came to look upon him almost as a supernatural being. The biographer of the venerable Father Davion, who governed the Yazoos in Louisiana, tells how the Indians regarded him as more than human. "Had they not, they said, frequently seen him at night, with his dark solemn gown, not walking, but gliding through the woods like something spiritual? How could one so weak in frame, and using so little food, stand so many fatigues? How was it that whenever one of them fell sick, however distant it might be, Father Davion knew it instantly and was sure to be there before sought for? Did any of his prophecies ever prove false? What was it he was in the habit of muttering so long, when counting the beads of that mysterious chain that hung round his neck? Was he not then telling the Great Spirit every wrong they had done? So they both loved and feared Father Davion. One day they found him dead at the foot of the altar; he was leaning against it with his head cast back, with his hands clasped, and still retaining his kneeling position. There was an expression of rapture in his face, as if to his sight the gates of Paradise had suddenly unfolded themselves to give him admittance; it was evident that his soul had exhaled into a prayer, the last on this earth, but terminating no doubt in a hymn of rejoicing above." But great as may be the spectacle of triumphant martyrdom, there are yet men unwilling to change places with the missionary priest. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in The Problem:

But others also came to New France besides priests and martyrs; the adventurers and beggared noblemen—poor, uneducated, yet bold and courageous. The historian tells us of "the beggared noble of the early time" who came over, "never forgetting his quality of gentilhomme; scrupulously wearing its badge the sword, and copying, as well as he could, the fashions of the court which glowed on his vision across the sea with all the effulgence of Versailles and beamed with reflected ray from the Chateau of Quebec. He was at home among his tenants, at home among the Indians, and never more at home than when, a gun in his hand and a crucifix on his breast, he took the warpath with a crew of painted savages and Frenchmen almost as wild, and pounced like a lynx from the forest on some lonely farm or outlying hamlet of New England. How New England hated him, let her records tell. The reddest blood-streaks on her old annals mark the track of the Canadian gentilhomme."

QUAINT OLD QUEBEC.

Thus created a thoroughly French region, Lower Canada still maintains the religious character of the original colony. The geographical names are mostly those of the saints and fathers of the Church, and much of the land is owned by religious bodies. The population is four-fifths French, and nowhere does the Church to-day show more vitality or command more thorough devotion. The city of Quebec almost stands still in population, having about seventy thousand, of whom five-sixths are French. It is now just as Champlain made it, though larger, a fortress, trading-station and church combined, and quaintly attractive in all three phases. No finer location could have been selected for a town and seaport, and no more impregnable position found to guard the St. Lawrence passage than its junction with the river St. Charles. An elevated tongue of land stretches along the northwestern bank of the St. Lawrence for several miles, and from behind it comes out the St. Charles. Below their junction the broad Isle of Orleans blocks the way, dividing the St. Lawrence into two channels, while above, the noble river contracts to the "Narrows," less than a mile in width, making a strait guarded all along by bold shores. At the northern extremity of this tongue of land, and opposite the "Narrows" of the river, rises the lofty cliff of Cape Diamond, three hundred and fifty feet above the water, the citadel crowning the hill and overlooking the town nestling at its foot. The fortifications spread all around the cliff and its approaches, completely guarding the rivers and the means of access by land; but it is now all peaceful, being only a show-place for sight-seers. As may be imagined, this grand fortress is magnificent to look at from the water approach, while the outlook from the ramparts and terraces on top of the cliff is one of the finest sights over town and rivers, hills and woods, in the world.