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Title: The Picturesque St. Lawrence
Author: Johnson, Clifton (1865-1940)
Illustrator: Johnson, Clifton (1865-1940)
Date of first publication: April 1910
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and London: Macmillan, 1910
   (first edition) [Picturesque River series]
Date first posted: 19 June 2009
Date last updated: 19 June 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #335

This ebook was produced by: Marcia Brooks
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




     THE PICTURESQUE ST. LAWRENCE



        THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
      NEW YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO
        ATLANTA  SAN FRANCISCO

    MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
      LONDON  BOMBAY  CALCUTTA
              MELBOURNE

  THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
               TORONTO

[Illustration: _Beside the St. Lawrence at Kingston_]




THE
PICTURESQUE
ST. LAWRENCE


_WRITTEN AND
ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON_

_PICTURESQUE
RIVER SERIES_

[Illustration]

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

_New York 1910_

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LIMITED


_Copyright, 1910,
by The Macmillan Company._

Published April, 1910




THE PICTURESQUE
ST. LAWRENCE


_Electrotyped
and
Printed
by The
F. A. Bassette Company
Springfield, Mass._


Transcriber's Note: A full list of errata can
be found at the end of the book.




Contents


     I.  The Earliest Explorers                  1

    II.  The Thousand Islands                   21

   III.  The Rapids                             41

    IV.  Early Montreal                         74

     V.  The Montreal of Today                  92

    VI.  The Ottawa                            106

   VII.  The Richelieu and Lake Champlain      124

  VIII.  The Historic St. Francis              144

    IX.  Quebec's Eventful History             156

     X.  The Quebec of the Present             187

    XI.  From Cape Diamond to the Gulf         205

   XII.  The Beautiful Saguenay                229

  XIII.  The St. Lawrence in Winter            240




Illustrations


  Beside the St. Lawrence at Kingston                 _Frontispiece_

                                                         FACING PAGE

  Montreal and Mount Royal as seen from Helen's Isle               4

  The mountainous northern shore of lower river                    9

  Quebec Citadel and Lower town in winter                         16

  The Tadousac landing at the mouth of the Saguenay               21

  Gateway to Fort Frontenac                                       25

  The first of the Thousand Islands near Kingston                 32

  The historic lighthouse at Prescott                             36

  The Long Sault Rapids                                           41

  Church and priest's house at St. Regis                          48

  On the shores of Lake St. Louis                                 53

  Lachine                                                         56

  An old farmhouse                                                65

  Sailing vessels at the Montreal wharves                         68

  The Chateau de Ramezay                                          73

  The Place d'Armes and Notre Dame Cathedral                      80

  At the entrance to the Lachine Canal                            85

  In the marketplace near the Nelson Monument                     88

  The river road on Montreal Island                               97

  The Lake of the Two Mountains                                  104

  Looking across the Ottawa toward the parliament buildings      113

  The River Rideau near Ottawa                                   116

  A field on the borders of a village                            121

  Old Fort Chambly                                               128

  A Lake Champlain ferryboat                                     133

  Fort Frederic at Crown Point                                   136

  The waterfalls at the entrance to the Ausable Chasm            145

  Near the head of tide-water above Three Rivers                 153

  On the St. Francis at Sherbrooke                               160

  The citadel crowned height of Quebec                           164

  A byway adjoining the Basilica                                 168

  Cape Diamond                                                   177

  Wolfe's Cove                                                   181

  Overlooking the St. Lawrence from the Plains of Abraham        184

  The Champlain Monument                                         193

  Sous le Cap Street                                             197

  Quebec--A Calche                                              200

  Saint Anne de Beaupr                                          209

  The sacred stairway                                            212

  The Isle of Hazels as seen from Les Eboulements                216

  The Falls of Montmorency                                       225

  On the Saguenay Steamer                                        228

  Chicoutimi                                                     232

  Cape Eternity and Cape Trinity                                 241

  The road up Mount Royal                                        245

  Snowbound                                                      246

  February in a country village                                  250




Introductory Note


It is believed that the volumes in this Picturesque River Series are
sufficiently comprehensive in their text to make them distinctly
valuable as guide books; and at the same time they are compact enough in
size not to be burdensome to those who wish to carry them in trunk or
bag. There is, of course, no attempt to give a detailed catalog of all
the charms of any particular stream, for that could only be done at a
sacrifice of readableness. But the more striking features--picturesque,
historic, literary, legendary--have received ample attention. A great
variety of volumes more or less closely related to the story of each
river has been consulted, and many fragments of fact and fancy have been
culled from such sources and woven into the text of the present series;
but there is also included much which is the result of personal
observation, and of contact with chance acquaintances, who furnish to
every traveller a great deal of the pleasure and human interest of any
particular journey.

The numerous pictures were all made especially for these books with the
intent of supplying an attractive summary of each stream's
individuality. All in all, the books, both in their literary and
pictorial features, are of such a character that they should be of
general interest and in a marked degree serviceable to whoever wishes to
make a journey beside or on any of the rivers that find place in this
series.




The Picturesque St. Lawrence




I

THE EARLIEST EXPLORERS


The St. Lawrence, measured from its most distant source, is over two
thousand miles long, but ordinarily the name is only applied to the
seven hundred miles between Lake Ontario and the Gulf. It drains an
immense portion of North America, and the amount of water it carries to
the ocean is exceeded by no other river on the globe except the Amazon.
Nearly all its feeders are clear woodland trout or salmon streams, and
its purity is no less remarkable than its volume. Its waters shake the
earth at Niagara; and "The Great Lakes are its camping grounds, where
its hosts repose under the sun and stars in areas like that of states
and kingdoms."

The breadth of its upper course is seldom less than a mile, and in
several places there are expansions of such extent that they have
received the name of lake. Below Quebec it has a width of from twenty
to thirty miles. The influence of the tide is felt more than five
hundred miles from the gulf, and the river is navigable for large
sea-going vessels to Montreal, eighty miles farther inland. Rapids
interrupt progress in the river itself beyond that point, but by the aid
of canals continuous water communication is obtained to the head of Lake
Superior. Indeed, taking the river, the canals and lakes together, this
is the grandest system of inland navigation in the world.

Some of the river's tributaries are themselves of notable size. The
largest are the Ottawa and the Saguenay, which flow into it from the
north; but mention should also be made of those historic water
thoroughfares--the Richelieu and St. Francis, which come from the south.
As a rule, the tributary streams run a rough and tortuous course and
abound in rapids and waterfalls that give them beauty and often furnish
valuable power.

The streams were the main highways of the savages, and they built their
villages on the banks, fished in the waters and hunted in the
neighboring woodlands. The Indians had no horses or other beasts of
burden, and this lack, as much as the difficulties of the wilderness,
hindered their travel by land. Their journeying was therefore largely
confined to the lakes and streams leaving no trail by which their
movements could be traced, except where they carried their light
birch-bark canoes around rapids or falls, or where a portage was
necessary from one waterway to another.

The rivers and the lakes in like manner served the early comers from
Europe when they wanted to penetrate inland, and on their banks were
established the homes of such settlers as ventured away from the
seacoast. Under these conditions it is only natural that the whole
history of Canada should be closely interwoven with that of the St.
Lawrence, and it was by way of this stream that the pioneers from France
overran a great part of the interior of the continent before the
settlers of the Atlantic Coast had crossed the Appalachians.

Within a few years after Columbus made his first voyage to the New
World, the French fishing boats began to frequent the cod-banks of
Newfoundland. This fishery soon became well established, and as early as
1517 no less than fifty Spanish, French and Portuguese vessels were
engaged in it at the same time. But there was little inclination on the
part of the voyagers to make permanent settlements on the rocky shores
that bordered the fishing grounds or to attempt inland exploration, for
the region was regarded with a good deal of superstitious fear. Griffins
were supposed to infest the gloomy mountains of Labrador; and fiends,
with wings, horns and tail, were said to have taken possession of an
island north of Newfoundland. Voyagers passing this "Isle of Demons"
heard the din of infernal orgies; and the mariners who had occasion to
set foot on its shores would never venture alone into the haunted woods.
It was even affirmed that the Indians had abandoned the island, so
tormented were they by the imps of darkness.

[Illustration: _Montreal and Mount Royal as seen from Helen's Isle_]

Fishermen and explorers gradually made known the contour of Newfoundland
and the adjoining mainland; but the first person to go up the St.
Lawrence was Jacques Cartier. He was a man who came of a family of hardy
sailors, and had gone to sea as a mere boy. Later he became a corsair
roaming the high seas in search of weaker vessels to capture, generally,
though not always, those of a nation with which his own chanced to be at
war; and his ideas of right and wrong were never very clear. When he
sailed from France in 1534 on his earliest voyage to the New World he
was forty years old, with a well-established reputation for courage and
energy. This venture was made in the hope of adding to his own and his
country's prosperity by finding a short route to China and India. His
two little vessels were smaller than most modern yachts, but they safely
crossed the pathless waste of waters, and at the end of three weeks the
voyagers sighted Newfoundland and put into a harbor to repair their
ships. Then they sailed northward to the coast of Labrador which looked
so dreary, even in the month of June, that they were persuaded it must
be the land told of in the Bible, set apart for Cain; and the
inhabitants were so unfriendly it seemed quite likely they were that
outcast's descendants.

Cartier passed between Labrador and Newfoundland through the Straits of
Belle Isle and cruised southward to the coast of New Brunswick where he
entered Miramichi Bay. While there so many savages paddled out in their
canoes to see the wonderful strangers in boats moving with wings that
Cartier fired his cannon to scare them away. But the next day he went on
shore and made friends with the chief of the Indians by giving him a red
hat.

When the little vessels resumed their voyage they went up the coast to
the peninsula that thrusts out into the gulf south of the great river.
At Gasp, Cartier landed and planted a cross and took captive two young
Indians from far up the St. Lawrence who had come down to the sea to
catch mackerel. Then he crossed to the Island of Anticosti, where he was
actually at the entrance of the river, had he only known it. But stormy
autumn was at hand, and he bore away for France carrying with him, as a
sample of the natural products of the region he had explored, the two
Indian captives.

The following year, in May, Cartier again sailed for the New World, this
time with three vessels. His followers consisted of a mixed company of
gentleman rovers who wanted to go, criminals from the jails who did not
want to go, and the two kidnapped Indians. When the Atlantic had been
crossed Cartier went through the Straits of Belle Isle just as he had on
his previous voyage. Then he put into a small bay on the Labrador coast
to which he gave the name of St. Lawrence, a name afterward applied to
the entire gulf and to the great river beyond.

Later, as he was sailing westward along the bleak coast of the Gasp
Peninsula, where to the south could be seen the blue Gasp range of
mountains with its lofty sentinels, the Shickshaws, Cartier questioned
his Indians as to the nature of the channel before them.

"It is a river without end," they replied.

The breadth of the channel and the saltness of the water made Cartier
doubt that it could really be a river, and he sailed on hoping he had
found a passage to the Indies. It seemed a hazardous undertaking to go
on thus with no better pilots than the two young Indians; but fortune
favored, and on the first of September the voyagers reached the gorge of
the Saguenay with its towering cliffs and marvellous depth of water. The
savage, mountainous shores of this stream from the north disinclined
Cartier to explore in that direction, though his Indians told him
wonderful stories of mines and gems that could be found beyond the rocky
barriers. He continued up the St. Lawrence and anchored a few miles
below what is now Quebec, between the northern shore and the richly
wooded Isle of Orleans. Indians came swarming from the shores paddling
their canoes about the ships and clambering to the decks to gaze in
bewilderment at the voyagers and their belongings.

Cartier received them kindly, listened to a long speech by their great
chief, Donnacona, whom he regaled with bread and wine; and after his
guests departed set forth in a boat to explore the river above.

When he came to the west end of the Isle of Orleans the river again
spread broad before him, and on ahead a mighty promontory thrust its
rugged front out into the current from the north shore of the mainland.
East of the crag a tributary joined the main stream. This was the river
now called the St. Charles. Cartier ascended it a short distance,
landed, crossed the meadows, clambered up the rocks through the forest
and emerged on a clearing where there was a squalid hamlet of bark huts.
Here dwelt the chief that Cartier had entertained on his vessel, and the
village was called Stadacona. The name, which means "a crossing on
floating wood," originated in the fact that at high tide the mouth of
the St. Charles was frequently so blocked with driftwood it could be
crossed on foot. After satisfying their curiosity the visitors returned
to their ships.

[Illustration: _The mountainous northern shore of lower river_]

The Indians said that many days' journey up the river was a much larger
village, named Hochelaga; but when Cartier told them he would go to
see it they tried to dissuade him, probably because they did not wish to
share with others the advantages of trading with the white men. Their
arguments availed nothing, and they concluded to try another sort of
appeal. One morning, the Frenchmen, looking up the river from their
anchored ships, beheld three Indians attired to represent devils
approaching in a canoe. The masqueraders were dressed in black and white
dog skins, they had blackened their faces, and on their heads were
antlers as long as a man's arm. They allowed their canoe to drift slowly
past the ship while the chief fiend delivered a loud-voiced harangue.

Then they paddled to the shore where their fellow-tribesmen rushed
pell-mell from the bordering woods, and with shrill clamors bore them
into the sheltering thickets. In this leafy seclusion the French heard
the Indians declaiming in solemn conclave for a full half hour. At
length the two young Indians who had been Cartier's captives came out of
the bushes and enacted a pantomime of amazement and terror. Cartier
shouted from the vessel to ask what was the matter. They replied that
the god Coudouagny had sent to warn the French against attempting to
ascend the river, and that if the voyagers persisted in going thither
they would be overwhelmed with snowstorms, gales and drifting ice.

The French replied that Coudouagny was a fool, and made ready for the
expedition. Cartier set out for Hochelaga in his smallest ship and two
open boats, accompanied by several of the gentlemen who had come with
him from France, and fifty sailors. They glided on their way with the
forests of gay autumnal verdure on either hand festooned with
grape-vines, and the water alive with wild-fowl. The ship grounded, but
they went on in the boats, and on the second of October neared
Hochelaga. The Indians had seen them coming, and when they approached
the shore, just below where now are Montreal's quays and storehouses on
the southern side of the great island that the city occupies, they found
a throng of savages gathered to receive them. As soon as the boats
touched the land the Indians crowded around, dancing and singing, and
bestowing on the strangers gifts of fish and maize. The natives
continued to express their delight even after it grew dark; for the
night was lighted up far and near with fires around which the savages
could be seen from the French camp, still engaged in their revels.

At dawn the French started to follow a path leading northward through
the forest that covered the site of the future city. Presently they met
an Indian chief with a numerous retinue, who greeted them courteously
and invited them to pause and warm themselves by a fire kindled beside
the path. When they had seated themselves the chief made them a speech,
and was requited for his eloquence by two hatchets, two knives, and a
crucifix. Then the march was resumed, and soon the strangers came to
open fields covered with ripened maize, and on beyond rose a steep,
wooded mountain with the Indian town at its base.

The town was encircled with palisades formed of trunks of trees set in a
triple row. The middle row was upright, while the outer and inner ones
inclined and crossed near the summit where they were lashed to a
horizontal pole. On the inner side of the palisades were galleries for
the defenders with rude ladders to mount to them and quantities of
stones ready to throw down on the heads of assailants. When the voyagers
entered the narrow portal they found about half a hundred large oblong
dwellings, each serving for several families. These were fifty yards or
so long, and twelve or fifteen wide, and had frames of slender poles
covered with sheets of bark. Through the middle of each wigwam ran a
passage with stone fireplaces at intervals and openings in the roof
above to allow some of the smoke to escape. Kettles of baked clay were
used for cooking purposes. Along the borders of the apartments were
benches covered with furs to serve for beds; and on the walls hung
sheaves of stone arrows, and occasional tomahawks, flint knives, red
clay pipes and dried human scalps.

The dwellings were arranged about an open area a stone's throw in width,
and here Cartier and his followers were surrounded by swarms of women
and children. With their white skins, bearded faces and strange attire
and weapons, they doubtless seemed demigods rather than men. Presently a
troop of women brought mats, the bare earth was carpeted for the guests,
and they sat down. Then the feminine and juvenile rabble was banished to
a distance by the warriors, who squatted row on row around the whites.
As soon as they had settled themselves the bed-ridden old chief of the
nation, paralyzed, helpless and squalid, was borne on a deerskin by some
of his subjects into the midst of the assembly and placed before
Cartier. The aged savage pointed feebly to his powerless limbs and
implored the healing touch from the hand of the French chief. Then from
the surrounding dwellings came a woful procession of the sick, the lame,
the blind, carried or led forth, and all gathered before the perplexed
commander as if he were a powerful magician capable of restoring them to
immediate health.

The best he could do was to pronounce over his petitioners some verses
from the Bible, make the sign of the cross, and utter a prayer. Then
came a distribution of presents. Knives and hatchets were given to the
men, and beads to the women, while pewter rings and other trinkets were
thrown among the children who engaged in a vigorous scramble to secure
these treasures.

Now the French filed out of the town, and, accompanied by a troop of
Indians, climbed to the top of the neighboring mountain, whence they
could see in all directions the mantling forest, broken only by the
cornfields just below, and by the broad river glistening amid the realm
of verdure. Cartier called the height Mount Royal, and this same name in
slightly different form is that of the busy city which now occupies the
site of the old Indian town.

The French presently returned to their boats and rowed away down the
river. When they arrived at Stadacona they found that their companions
had built a fort of palisades on the bank of the St. Charles, and close
by were moored the ships. Here they were all soon besieged by the rigors
of the Canadian winter. The streams were frozen over, and the snow
blanketed everything with white, and drifted above the sides of the
ships. At first the Indians came daily wading through the snow to the
fort, but by the end of December their visits had almost ceased. Scurvy
broke out among the French, and man after man succumbed, till
twenty-five had died, and only three or four were left in health. The
ground was so hard they could not bury their dead, and they hid the
bodies in the snowdrifts. Cartier nailed an image of the Virgin against
a tree, and on a Sunday summoned forth his followers, who, haggard and
woe-begone, moved in feeble procession to the spot. There they knelt in
the snow before the holy symbol and sang litanies and psalms. That day
another of the party died.

There was fear that the Indians, hearing of the weakness of the whites,
might finish the work the scurvy had begun. So none were allowed to
approach the fort; and when a party of savages lingered within hearing,
the invalid garrison beat with sticks and stones against the walls that
the clatter might delude their dangerous neighbors into thinking the men
in the fort were engaged in hard labor. One day, Cartier, walking near
the river, met an Indian who had been suffering not long before with
scurvy, as had many of the other Indians. He was now in high health and
spirits. Cartier asked him by what means he had been cured, and the
Indian replied it was by drinking a decoction made from the leaves of
the arbor-vit. As soon as possible, after Cartier had returned and
reported at the fort, a copious quantity of this healing draught was
prepared. The men drank freely and health and hope began to revisit the
hapless company.

The winter at last wore away, the ships were released from the grip of
the ice, and the French made ready to sail for France. Cartier wanted to
take back some of the natives to tell of the marvels of the region he
had discovered, and as he knew they would not go of their own free will,
he lured Donnacona and several of his chiefs to the fort where he had
them seized and hurried on board the ships. Then the voyagers erected a
cross on the bank of the stream, raised the flag of France near by and
sailed away down the river. The tribesmen of Donnacona followed in their
canoes as far as the Isle of Hazels begging for the release of the
kidnapped chiefs, but without avail. Cartier kept on his course and
reached France in midsummer.

In his account of this year in the New World he calls the St. Lawrence
"the River of Hochelaga," or "the great river of Canada." Canada was an
Indian word equivalent to town or village and was at first applied by
the French to only a limited portion of the valley about Stadacona. But
the extent of territory it covered was gradually enlarged until it now
embraces all the British dominions in North America except Newfoundland
and Labrador.

Five years passed, and we find Cartier for a third time on his way
across the Atlantic. "We have resolved," said the king, "to send him
again to the lands of Canada and Hochelaga, which form the extremity of
Asia toward the west." The object of the expedition was discovery,
settlement, and the conversion of the Indians.

[Illustration: _Quebec Citadel and Lower Town in winter_]

In the course of time Cartier's fleet of five ships cast anchor beneath
the cliffs of Quebec. Canoes came out from the shore filled with
feathered savages inquiring for their kidnapped chiefs. But Cartier
answered evasively. As a matter of fact the captives had all died within
a year or two, though he only acknowledged the death of Donnacona and
declared that the others had married white women and were so contented
with their new life that they had refused to come back.

The French presently went a few miles farther up the river to Cap Rouge
where they landed. Here they picked up quartz crystals on the shore and
thought them diamonds, rambled through the tall grass of the meadow in
an adjacent glen that opened back inland, climbed the steep promontory
whence they looked down on the neighboring wooded slopes, and in a
quarry of slate gathered scales of a yellow mineral that glistened like
gold. Later they cleared off a patch of woods, sowed some turnip seed,
cut a zigzag road up the height, and built two forts, one at the summit
and one on the shore below.

A nobleman named Roberval was to follow Cartier from France and
reinforce his expedition; and after considerable delay, he set sail with
three ships and two hundred colonists. But hardly had he crossed the
Atlantic when he met Cartier's fleet on its way home. What prompted so
resolute a man as Cartier to thus abandon the New World is not known.
Roberval ordered him to return, but under cover of night Cartier slipped
away and continued his voyage to France.

Roberval had a mixed company of nobles, soldiers, sailors and
adventurers, and a number of women and children. Among the women was a
very comely maiden named Marguerite, a niece of Roberval himself. The
same ship in which she sailed carried a young gentleman who had embarked
for love of her, and she loved him. This was not to Roberval's liking.
He demanded that they should renounce each other, but the lovers defied
him, and in his rage he anchored off the Isle of Demons, landed
Marguerite with an old Norman nurse who had taken the lovers' part, gave
them four arquebuses for their defence and left them to their fate.
Roberval thought he had effectually separated the maiden and her
betrothed but the young man threw himself into the sea, and by desperate
effort gained the shore.

The ship sailed on its way, and, during the long months that followed,
the three dwellers on the island contrived to subsist on beasts and
birds shot with the arquebuses. In the course of a year a child was born
to Marguerite, the first child born of European parentage in all the
vast domain now known as British North America. Soon afterward the
father of the babe died, and the two women laid him to rest as best they
could. A few months later the child died also, and its little body was
buried beside that of its father. The old nurse did not survive much
longer, and then Marguerite was left alone. Sometimes the white bears
prowled around her dwelling, and she shot three. Sometimes the demons
assailed her, but she discharged her guns at them and they retired with
shrieks and threats. Two years and five months after she landed on the
island, she saw a small fishing-craft far out at sea and hastily made a
fire to attract its attention. The crew presently observed the column of
smoke curling upward from the haunted shore, and they warily drew near,
until they descried a woman in wild attire waving signals to them. So
they took Marguerite from the island, and she went with them back to
France.

Her uncle had gone on up the St. Lawrence and started a settlement in
the wilderness at Cap Rouge. On the height where Cartier had intrenched
himself Roberval erected a castle-like structure with two spacious
halls, a kitchen, chambers, storerooms, workshops, cellars, a well, an
oven and two water-mills. Here all the colony dwelt under the same roof.
At length two of the ships sailed for home, and winter came on. Then the
colony found that though they had storehouses there were no stores; they
had mills, but no grist; an ample oven, yet lacked bread. They bought
fish of the Indians, and dug roots which they boiled in whale-oil.
Disease broke out, and before spring a third of the settlers had died.
Roberval ruled his followers with a rod of iron. The quarrels of the men
and the scolding of the women were alike punished at the whipping-post,
"by which means they lived in peace." An attempt to explore the upper
river resulted in the loss of eight men, and the whole experience of the
colony was so dismal that the remnants presently returned to their
native land.

Of the final fate of Roberval there are conflicting accounts. The most
interesting one is to the effect that he made another voyage to the New
World and went up the Saguenay; and it is affirmed by the natives that
he and his followers have never returned but are still wandering
somewhere in the interior.

[Illustration: _The Tadousac landing at the mouth of the Saguenay_]




II

THE THOUSAND ISLANDS

On the Canadian side of the river, where the St. Lawrence leaves Lake
Ontario and begins to thread its way among the intricacies of the
Thousand Islands, stands the historic city of Kingston. Here was
established a wilderness outpost in the days of the early French
dominion. Count Frontenac, then Governor of New France, selected the
site in 1673 and erected a strong wooden blockhouse to protect the fur
trade between Montreal and the northwestern wilds. Accompanied by about
four hundred men, including a considerable proportion of mission
Indians, he came himself from Quebec to see the work done. The journey
was made in a hundred and twenty canoes and two large flat-boats. These
flat-boats were painted with strange devices in red and blue that the
Iroquois who had been invited to a council might be dazzled by the
unwonted display of splendor.

The council met where the city now is, and there was speech-making and
much flattery and many fine promises. Frontenac gave presents of guns
and tobacco to the braves, and raisins to the women and children; and in
the evenings he feasted the squaws to make them dance.

Meanwhile Frontenac's followers had begun the fort. Some cut down trees,
some dug the trenches, some hewed the palisades; and the Iroquois were
greatly astonished at the orderliness and alacrity with which the work
proceeded. When Fort Frontenac, as it was called, had been completed, a
guard was left in the lonely outpost provisioned for a twelve-month, and
the rest of the expedition departed down the river.

The next year, by act of the King of France, Fort Frontenac and its
vicinity was turned over to La Salle, the future explorer of the
Mississippi, on condition that he pay back ten thousand francs the fort
had cost the king, maintain the stronghold at his own charge, form a
French colony about it, build a church whenever the inhabitants should
reach one hundred, and form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the
neighborhood.

La Salle promptly accepted the responsibility, began his tasks, and was
in a fair way to make his fortune, so favorable was the situation for
the fur trade. He was master of all around him, the nearest settlement
being a week's journey distant. Within two years he demolished the
original fort and replaced it with another that had ramparts and
bastions of stone on the land side, and palisades fronting the water.
Nine small cannon were mounted on the walls. It contained barracks, a
forge, a well, a mill and a bakery. About fifteen persons constituted
the garrison, and there were in addition two or three score laborers and
canoe-men, the latter reputed to be the best in America. Along the shore
south of the fort was a small hamlet of French farms, and farther on, a
village of Iroquois whom La Salle had persuaded to settle here.
Considerable land had been cleared and planted, cattle, swine and fowls
had been brought up from Montreal, and three small vessels had been
built to ply on the lake in the interest of the fur trade.

But the autocrat of this little empire was not content. He would explore
the great valley of the Mississippi and add it to the French domain in
the New World. So late in the year 1678 he left all prospects of wealth
and comfort and began the long journey that was to end only with his
death in the wilds of Texas.

The years passed without any events of serious significance occurring at
Fort Frontenac until 1687. There had been, however, a good deal of
trouble with the Iroquois, and the French became suspicious of the
inhabitants of two Indian villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario.
These Indians had maintained a strict neutrality and were in the habit
of hunting and fishing for the Frontenac garrison. But now the French
invited them to the fort for a feast, and they came to the number of
thirty men and about ninety women and children. All were seized, and a
raiding party from the fort secured nearly as many more. The warriors
were tied to a row of posts inside of the fort, and one witness declared
that they were fastened by the neck, hands and feet in such a way that
they could neither sleep nor drive off the mosquitoes. To make matters
worse, some of the Christian Indians from down the river amused
themselves by burning the fingers of the unfortunates in the bowls of
their pipes. Most of them were eventually sent to France to share with
convicts and heretics the horrible slavery of the royal galleys. As for
the women and children, many died at the fort, and the rest were
baptized and distributed among the mission villages.

[Illustration: _Gateway to Fort Frontenac_]

The following year the Iroquois and their allies the English, threatened
reprisal, and an urgent entreaty was dispatched to the French king
begging him to send back the prisoners who had gone to the galleys. The
letter was written by the governor, and it contained these words: "If
ill-treatment has caused them all to die--for they are people who easily
fall into dejection, and who die of it--and if none of them come back, I
do not know whether we can persuade these barbarians not to attack us."

Thirteen of the captives were finally sent back from France gorgeously
clad, and returned to their people. But before they arrived affairs in
the valley of the St. Lawrence had become so critical that orders were
sent to have the commandant of Fort Frontenac destroy and desert the
stronghold. The garrison presently reached Montreal where they reported
that they had set fire to everything in the fort that would burn, sunk
three vessels belonging to it in the lake, mined the walls, and left
matches burning in the powder magazine. After they had started on their
journey they heard the explosion. But it was learned later that the
destruction was far from complete, and a large quantity of stores and
munitions fell into the hands of the Iroquois.

The fort remained a ruin for seven years, and then it was repaired and
once more garrisoned. It did not suffer again in the hazards of war
until 1758 when it capitulated to an English expedition from Oswego. The
victors carried off as much plunder as they could, and burned the rest
or gave it to their Indian allies. Besides battering the fort to pieces
they destroyed the surrounding buildings and the shipping and left only
desolation behind.

Such is the early story of Kingston, the most important town on the St.
Lawrence above Montreal. The city of today is a place of some fifteen
thousand inhabitants. Its military college, its massive forts and its
martello towers make it "the West Point of Canada." In the town itself
is Fort Frontenac near the waterside, and on a height of a neighboring
island that is connected with the city by a quaint wooden toll-bridge,
is Fort Henry. Both forts are of gray, weather-stained stone which gives
them an appearance of great age. One of the martello towers is right in
the harbor. The typical tower of this type is a circular structure of
masonry erected to repel the approach of an enemy by water, and has on
the summit a gun mounted on a revolving platform so it can be fired in
any direction. The Kingston towers were originally capable of doing
very effective work in repelling marauding Yankees, and they still look
grim and menacing and ready to deal out dire destruction, but in modern
warfare they probably have little value.

As seen from the harbor Kingston presents a particularly attractive
appearance with its spires and domes rising from amid the green foliage,
and the steamships and slender-masted sailing vessels and numerous minor
craft along its waterfront. The place is very compact, and it is
astonishing on a pleasant evening to see how full the chief street is of
people. Most of the stores are closed, but the younger portion of the
inhabitants seems to be out, nevertheless. The saloons and tobacco shops
are busy, and the moving picture "theatoriums" are generously
patronized; yet in the main the populace is just strolling. I imagined
that many of them might resort to the public library, but this
institution is merely a large dismal room over a store where I found
only a scant dozen readers. The books were caged off in an alcove, and
the battered old reading tables and tattered magazines were far from
being cheerfully attractive. An American town of the same size would
have a fine building and an extensive collection of books.

Perhaps the feature of Kingston that I enjoyed most was a park deeply
shadowed with trees, and open on one side to Lake Ontario. It was
delightful to linger there by the shore on a sunny afternoon, cooled by
the breeze, watching the limpid waves beat on the low rocky beach. The
water was wonderfully clear, and it enters the St. Lawrence as pure as a
mountain spring.

To the south were the first of the Thousand Islands. These islands,
which, as a matter of fact, number 1692, extend from Lake Ontario to
Prescott, fifty miles below. Some authorities say they begin with a
group west of Kingston known as the Three Brothers, and end at
Brockville with the Three Sisters. But there are other islands which
dispute the claims of these. Some people disregard the Three Brothers
entirely because they are several miles out in the lake, and declare
that the rightful leader of the procession is Whiskey Island, overlooked
by the grim stronghold of Fort Henry.

You could heave a stone from one end of Whiskey Island to the other; yet
there are some isles in the archipelago so much smaller than this as to
be mere dimples on the surface of the broad river and supporting not the
least verdure on their barren rocks. Other islands are large, fertile
areas crowned with lofty trees and containing hundreds of acres of
well-cultivated farms. Occasionally a single farmer owns an entire
island of a suitable size to support him and keep him busy. One such
owner with whom I talked thought this quite an ideal arrangement. He had
no line fences to maintain, and if he exterminated the weeds he knew
they would not come in again by someone else's neglect. Boats furnish
easy means of travel from the islands to the mainland in the warm
months, and in winter the channels are thickly sheeted with ice, on
which the islanders journey freely back and forth.

The steamers that make the down-river trips through the islands leave
Kingston at a very early hour, and on the autumn day that I went over
the route the morn was still dusky and starlit when I went on board. But
soon after we started the sun came up in the red eastern haze, and sent
its warm level beams over the broad expanse of the river. We continued
among the islands for four or five hours, yet much of the time so large
were they that it seemed as if we were sailing down a stream with
mainland on either side. At other times we were amid clusters of the
lesser islands, many of which are owned by wealthy people who have built
fine residences on them and laid out tasteful grounds. These summer
homes represent all kinds of domiciles from the modest cottage of the
camper to the imposing castle of the millionaire. Occasionally a little
bridge connected islets, and the waterside was buttressed with a stout
stone wall that followed in a sinuous line the natural contour of the
shore. The turf and the trees too, were groomed into a park-like aspect,
and it was all very pretty and pleasant. But I preferred those islands
that were still in a wild state of nature, with bristling firs and pines
crowning their rugged rocks. As a whole they are mild and low-lying and
make no very striking appeal to the sense of sight, though admirers
declare them to be the most picturesque archipelago in the world. Their
chief attraction consists in the constant changes of scene, daintiness
of form, and the turning and intersecting of the transparent waterways
gliding placidly between. That they should be healthful and have charm
for a summer resort with that cool flow of crystalline water always
about them is no wonder.

The river in this vicinity is remarkably equable, never in flood and
never much affected by droughts. Seven feet is its greatest variation
between a time of unusual rainfall, and a season that is extremely dry.
But the level of the stream is also influenced by strong prevailing
winds blowing up or down the lake; and as a result there have been
instances of rapid fall, followed by a returning wave of extraordinary
height.

What the Indians thought of the islands can be judged from the fact that
they called them "The Garden of the Great Spirit." The primeval forest
of the region abounded with deer and other game, the waters teemed with
fish, and its little bays and islets were the haunts of numerous
waterfowl--could anything be more delectable to the red hunter than such
a land of plenty?

Another poetic fancy with regard to the islands refers us back to the
time when Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden. We are told
that Eden itself was borne away by the white-winged angels to the
eternal spheres on high; but in passing through space there fluttered
down to earth some flowers from the divine garden. Most of them fell
into the broad outlet of Lake Ontario and there became the Thousand
Islands--the paradise of the St. Lawrence.

[Illustration: _The first of the Thousand Islands near Kingston_]

For unnumbered years this immediate neighborhood was the border-range of
two of the most powerful Indian clans that inhabited the ancient
American wilderness. North and east roamed the haughty Algonquins, noted
as the greatest hunters of the land, while in the valleys to the south
dwelt the Iroquois, who lived by fishing and cultivating the soil and
who boasted of great fields of maize and extensive apple orchards. For
many a changing season these people of the wilds dwelt side by side in
harmony. It was one of the friendly customs of the young men of the two
tribes to meet at certain times to hunt and fish together, with the
understanding that whichever party killed the lesser amount of game
animals, or speared the fewer fish, should dress all the spoils of the
chase that were brought in. Usually the Iroquois were the unfortunate
ones, and it at length became regarded as a certainty that they would do
the "squaw" work and that their rivals would enjoy running the game to
earth with no aftermath of disagreeable labor. This disinclined the
Iroquois to the sport and it was gradually being abandoned when, on one
of the now rare occasions that the rivals engaged in a hunt, the
Algonquins were astonishingly unsuccessful. For three days they followed
their quest in vain, but the Iroquois came from their forest rovings
with game in abundance. The Algonquins went sullenly about the unwelcome
task of dressing the game, and so sorely did they feel their disgrace
that they vowed among themselves to have revenge. Night came and while
the weary Iroquois hunters slept, a sudden assault was made and every
one of them slain.

The assassins denied their deed, and not till long after did the friends
of the dead learn the facts. Then they asked that justice should be done
the slayers. The Algonquins were called to a council but they evaded the
matter of a settlement, and tried to satisfy the complainants with
honeyed words. This, however, availed nothing. The Iroquois, fiercely
indignant, swore they would not rest, they nor their children to the
last generation, until the Algonquins had been swept from the earth.
Thus began the terrible feud which existed between the two savage races
at the coming of the white men, and which continued to rage, drawing
into its toils the French and the English and resulting in long dark
years of border warfare.

A favorite rendezvous of the Indians was Carleton Island, one of the
first good-sized islands on the American side of the river. Here many a
council of war was held and many a bloody raid was devised. This same
island, during the War of the Revolution, was a famous place of refuge
for the tories of the Middle Colonies.

Perhaps the most interesting story of the Thousand Islands is that of
the Lost Channel. It dates back to the time of the French and Indian
War. An English naval and military expedition had started from Oswego
against Montreal. The naval portion consisted of two armed vessels, the
_Mohawk_ and the _Onondaga_, and a number of boats. Soon after this
flotilla had entered the St. Lawrence the lookout on the _Onondaga_
discovered a party of French soldiers in a bateau putting out from
Carleton Island. The vessel promptly started in pursuit, at the same
time signalling the _Mohawk_ to follow. A lively race of several miles
ensued, and then the French boat disappeared down a narrow waterway
between a large island and a group of smaller islands.

The _Onondaga_ continued to follow until a startling discharge of
musketry from the wooded banks of the islands roundabout showed that it
had sailed into a trap. The decks of the warship were swept by the
leaden hail of the concealed foe, yet the English returned this fire so
fast and furiously that the enemy was glad to retire. It was now
necessary to find the way back to the main channel and to send word to
the sister ship, which had not been seen for some time, to return also.
For this latter duty a boat was dispatched under the command of Coxswain
Terry, who delivered the order successfully. Then he and his crew left
the _Mohawk_ and started to row to their own vessel.

The _Onondaga_ got back to the main channel and was at length rejoined
by the _Mohawk_, but the coxswain's boat failed to appear. After an
anxious period of waiting several parties were sent out to find the
missing men. Their search, however, was unavailing, and when hope had to
be abandoned the expedition went on its way. Nothing was ever learned of
the fate of Terry and his crew. Probably they became bewildered among
the maze of waterways and at last fell into the hands of the enemy. All
we actually know is that the passage his boat entered after leaving the
_Mohawk_ has since been known as "The Lost Channel."

Another narrative that adds much to the charm of the Thousand Islands is
concerned with the early years of the second quarter of the nineteenth
century. The belief was at that time widely accepted both in Canada and
the United States that the former country was being inflicted with the
same abuses by the English government that had caused the thirteen
American colonies to fight for their independence. A body of Canadian
rebels established headquarters on Navy Island in the Niagara River, a
short distance above the falls, and from there pretended to rule Canada.
A little sidewheel steamer, the _Caroline_, went back and forth between
the island and Buffalo carrying provisions to the rebels. But one dark
winter night a company of the "Men of Gore" as the government troops
guarding the Canadian shore called themselves, rowed across the swift
and dangerous current, seized the _Caroline_ as she lay at her wharf,
put the crew ashore, set the steamer on fire and sent her all ablaze
over Niagara Falls. As a consequence, the Navy Island rebels were
starved out.

[Illustration: _The historic lighthouse at Prescott_]

This act roused the ire of an American who was familiarly called "Bill"
Johnson, and who now became a sort of political Robin Hood intent to
confer on Canada the boon of freedom. He got together a band of
outlaws, or patriots, if one accepts their view, and on the night of May
30, 1838, he and his followers, disguised as Indians and armed with
muskets, boarded the Canadian steamer, _Sir Robert Peel_, while en route
from Brockville to Toronto carrying twenty passengers and a large amount
of money to pay off the troops in the Upper Province. With shouts of
"Remember the _Caroline_!" the "patriot" band forced the passengers and
crew to take to the boats. Then the steamer was set on fire and left to
her fate. The hull is still to be seen where it sank about a mile down
the river from Thousand Island Park.

Johnson, elated with his success, made a personal declaration of war;
but fortune favored him with no further conquests, and this "Pirate of
the Thousand Islands" soon became a fugitive from justice. His daring
and devoted daughter Kate rowed him from hiding-place to hiding-place,
and kept him supplied with food. Kate at length succeeded in securing
his pardon, and he became a lighthouse keeper. She herself married
happily and was much loved and respected for her devotion to her father
in the gloomy days of his outlawry. A secluded isle known as "The
Devil's Oven" on which he was concealed for over a year belongs to one
of her descendants.

In a literary way the Thousand Islands are closely linked with what is
considered by many to be Cooper's finest story--"The Pathfinder." The
culminating scenes of the book are located on "Station Island." No
island of that name is to be found on the maps, and the author probably
did not have any particular island in mind, but there seems reasonable
warrant for concluding it must have been one of those on the Canadian
side above Ganonoque.

As we move on down the river we at length reach Brockville. Near the
east end of the town a bluff rises from the water's edge to a height of
about fifty feet. This ledge with its overhanging shelves and clinging
vines and many little caves is commonly spoken of as "High Rocks." At a
point where the face of the cliff is comparatively smooth tracings of a
painting could be seen until within a few years. Formerly the spot was
visited every spring by a band of Indians, who with weird ceremonies and
incantations brightened the picture with fresh paint and departed. The
picture was a rough representation of two white men apparently falling
out of a canoe propelled by several Indians. This commemorated the
following episode:

Two captured English officers were being conveyed by the Indians down
the river to Montreal. As they approached Brockville a terrific storm
arose and the boat being heavily loaded the Indians threw the prisoners
overboard to lighten the canoe and at the same time appease the
storm-god by a human sacrifice. But the storm-god refused to be
placated. The gale increased in violence, and the Indians, feeling that
they were doomed, mingled the wail of their death song with the howling
of the hurricane. When opposite High Rocks the canoe went down with all
its human freight, which included a distinguished chief. For more than a
hundred years afterward members of the tribe visited the rock to renew
the picture, and to attempt by their incantations to win back the favor
of the Great Spirit, who was angry because the two officers had been
drowned instead of being saved to burn at the stake.

As a whole, Brockville's experience has been peaceful, but one winter
day, in the War of 1812, the Americans crossed the St. Lawrence on the
ice and raided the town, robbing houses and carrying off as prisoners
many of the villagers. In retaliation the Canadians attacked the
fortified American town of Ogdensburg a little farther down the river.
They surprised the garrison, took seventy-five prisoners and burned the
barracks and four war vessels.

But now our steamer passes the row of little low-lying islets known as
the Three Sisters that breast the current just below Brockville, and the
Thousand Islands lie behind us, while the rapids are not far ahead.

[Illustration: _The Long Sault Rapids_]




III

The Rapids


The lake steamers continue down the river as far as Prescott. They
cannot go farther because they are too large to run the rapids, which,
beyond this point, occur at intervals all the way to Montreal. A
transfer is therefore made to the river steamers. But Prescott itself is
not without attractions that invite the traveller to loiter. On a slight
elevation, a little back from the river is a stout, stone-walled
blockhouse. This is surrounded by a high earthwork which hides all but
the roof, and as the base of the earthwork is skirted with palisades the
visitor who wishes to make a closer inspection of the fortification must
seek the entrance.

I stopped to chat with a woman who lived near by. The day was warm, and
she was sitting on her piazza enjoying the comfort of a breeze and
occasionally chatting with chance acquaintances who paused in passing
along the broad walk in front. When I asked about the blockhouse she
said:

"Do you see that old lady going up the road with her cow? She could tell
you all about it. Her husband soldiered it in England as a young man,
and after he came here he had charge of the blockhouse for forty years.
One night he died. He'd gone to bed feeling fine, and there he was in
the morning dead with his eyes and mouth tight shut, layin' on his left
side, perfectly peaceful. It's a nice job being keeper of that fort. The
pay is liberal, the family lives in the blockhouse without its costing
'em anything for rent, and there's free pasturage for their cows. Oh,
they've got a good chance and don't have to do a tap of work.

"Did you notice that man who just went by? He's an Indian. There's a
couple of Indian families have moved here lately. They live in old
shabby houses, but my lands! they're stylish as any white people. I was
tellin' Jim, my husband, about the way they dress; and he says they're
very civil and well-educated. One of the squaws went to school in an
Ottawa convent."

In the dreamy distance across the river I could see the wide-spreading
city of Ogdensburg. My companion seemed a little envious of this
flourishing American city, and she complained that Prescott was not a
bit larger than it was twenty-five years ago, and that enterprises
started in the town to help its growth had usually proved failures. Yet,
why was expansion with all its chaos so desirable? I thought Prescott
was very snug and delightful, and that it would be difficult to improve
on its quiet homes and tree-shadowed streets. A radical business growth
would upset this serenity and destroy much of the beauty, and the place
would be gentle and homelike no longer.

There had been a fair in the town on the day of my visit, and in the
evening, wherever people met, they were discussing its various features.
An accident on the race course, though not very serious, had jarred the
nerves of some so that their enjoyment of the occasion was a good deal
dampened. One man who had been to so many fairs as to make his opinion
that of an expert, said he thought the best thing in this year's fair
was some trained fleas that could do tricks and draw little carts around
on a sheet of paper. Another critic of the fair was a small girl who
told how she had spent all her money on "the wild man" and the
merry-go-round. It cost ten cents to go into the tent to see the
former--"and he wasn't wild at all," she affirmed sorrowfully. "They
had him chained, but he was only just a nigger."

On the merry-go-round she had spent thirty-five cents making trip after
trip till she reached the bottom of her purse.

"Why, you crazy thing!" commented an older companion, "I should have
thought once would have been enough."

A mile down the river from the village is a lighthouse that is an
historic landmark of exceptional interest. It stands on an outjutting
point and is a very sturdy and thick-walled structure which originally
did duty as a windmill. In that earlier period of its existence it
figured conspicuously in the closing scenes of what was sometimes called
"the Patriot War." The Prescott episode was the result of a foolish
project among some fanatics of northern New York to overthrow the
Canadian government; but the war itself was inspired by the unrest of
the people of the Dominion because their affairs were to a very large
degree in the arbitrary control of the British ministry in London. Their
own views as to the needs of the country, and their protests against the
tyrannical and inconsiderate acts of the public officials counted for
little, and at length some of the more radical of the "Reformers," as
they styled themselves, made ready to fight.

In 1837 hostilities began with a skirmish near Toronto in which the
militia routed the rebels. Other minor actions followed, and the next
year a brave and skilful Polish soldier, Colonel Van Schultz, and six
hundred men made ready in Ogdensburg for a Canadian invasion. The men
were partly Dominion "patriots," but the majority of them were American
adventurers. Only one hundred and seventy reached the north shore of the
river. There they were caught in a trap; for the United States
authorities seized their boats and they could not return, nor could the
rest of the six hundred come to their aid. Soon they were hotly attacked
and took refuge in the big stone windmill on the bluff by the riverside,
a little beyond the eastern borders of Prescott village.

There they held out for three days, and in the fighting thirty-six of
the attacking force were killed, and nineteen of the besieged. At last
cannon arrived from Kingston, and it was evident that the windmill's
walls would be battered down unless the invaders surrendered. So they
gave up, and Van Schultz and eleven others were brought to trial and
hanged. It is of interest to recall that in his will Van Schultz left
ten thousand dollars for the benefit of the families of those of his
followers who sacrificed their lives in the expedition.

Soon after the river steamer leaves Prescott it passes through the
Gallops and the Rapids du Plat. These, though not turbulent enough to
afford any excitement, give a foretaste of what is to follow, and are a
welcome change from the smooth surface and steady current of the upper
river. But the Long Sault (_sault_ or _saut_, pronounced _soo_, is
equivalent to rapids) which comes next contains the heaviest swells on
the river. The rapids here extend for a distance of nine miles with a
total fall of about fifty feet. They are roughest at the part known as
"the Cellar." There, and wherever else the treacherous reefs block the
way, are found madly dashing waves and whirlpools and a smother of
flying spray.

When the descent in the steamer begins you can see on ahead the seething
tumult of waters rushing in fierce violence down the declivity,
apparently without termination. The vessel shoots forward, settles
downward to a lower level, rushes ahead again, and the sinking is
repeated; and thus the boat goes on through the buffeting surges and
darkling eddies past jutting headlands and threatening boulders. Even
with her steam almost shut off she has a speed of twenty miles an hour,
carried along by the sheer force of the current, and navigation of the
Long Sault requires unusual nerve and precision in piloting. To lessen
the possibility of a mishap the rudder is provided with an emergency
tiller, and this is ready for instant use while shooting the rapids.

The first large boat to attempt the passage of the Long Sault was the
_Ontario_ built about the year 1840 at the upper end of the lake of the
same name. Her speediness attracted the attention of some Montreal men
who bought her for a mail boat to ply between that city and Quebec. Then
they grappled with the problem of getting her down to Montreal. No craft
of anywhere near that size had ever attempted to run the Long Sault; but
they secured for the hazardous undertaking, two Indians known as "Old
Jock" and "Old Pete," the best pilots on the river. The owners promised
them one thousand dollars each if they accomplished the enterprise
successfully.

To test the depth of the water a crib was made forty feet square with
cross pieces ten feet apart, and having stakes ten feet long projecting
at frequent intervals from the bottom. Several Indians towed the crib
out into the stream at the head of the rapids and let it go. Meanwhile a
number of other Indians had been stationed in trees along the riverside
to watch the crib's progress, and still others were stationed at the
foot of the rapids where they caught the crib when it reached the quiet
water. The crib was turned over and it was found that none of the stakes
were broken. So it was plain there was water enough to run the _Ontario_
through.

The Indians who had been in the trees on the bank then went on board the
vessel and the voyage began. Each piloted it in turn as far as he had
observed the crib's course. The only white man on board was the
engineer, and he, like Old Jock and Old Pete was generously rewarded.
Thus was made, in 1843, the first steamer trip down the rapids, and a
descendant of one of those pioneer pilots now guides with trusty hand a
modern boat that goes over the same course as the _Ontario_ went then.
But no other steamer attempted the shooting of the rapids for fifteen
years.

[Illustration: _Church and priest's house at St. Regis_]

I stopped in the vicinity of the Long Sault at a country village where I
was told a variety of picturesque anecdotes concerning the river.

"The other day," said the landlord of my hotel, "the rudder chain of the
steamer broke while she was right in the midst of the rapids, and the
boat went careering down the stream in a way that made the passengers'
hair stand on end. You know she goes through those rapids like a bullet
shot out of a gun, and what with her wild motions and her speed the five
hundred tourists on board were just about scared to death. They were all
in a panic running around and not knowing whether to jump over, or take
the chances of getting smashed up on the vessel. But they got through
finally without being wrecked, and anchored to patch up things before
they went farther.

"That didn't hold a candle to the way two fellows from this village ran
the rapids some years ago. James Bullock, the hotel-keeper here got up a
picnic, and he thought it would be a big advertisement for the picnic
and draw a crowd if he announced that a sixteen foot skiff with a couple
of men in it would go down the rapids. He would be one of the men, and
for the other he got John McPhee--'Indian John' people called him,
though he wasn't an Indian at all, only rather dark skinned. The crowd
come all right, and gathered on a hill where they could see the whole
thing. First an old apple tree was sent down with a straw man tied
astraddle of it. That was to give an idea of where to go with the boat.

"Bullock and McPhee expected to get a ducking, and they took off their
coats and vests and boots and everything except their trousers and
shirts. One man rowed and the other sat in the stern to steer. They
might have gone through all right; but Lord! they went out too far.
Besides, I guess they'd drank a glass or two more'n was good for 'em.
They got a blame good scare right at the start. At the very head of the
rapids is a big white swell that is never twice alike. That old breaker
works cur'us, and when the boat struck it she was tossed up as high as a
house, bottom upward. On shore there was the greatest excitement you
ever saw, but we couldn't do anything. The boat went on like a race
horse. Sometimes the men were on it and sometimes off, and there were
times when they were swimming twenty feet away.

"By and by they got to the whirlpool and the boat canted up on end and
went right down out of sight. That was where they lost their grip. But
there happened to be a boat with a couple of men in it near the shore at
that place and they grabbed Bullock and McPhee by the hair of their
heads as they were drifting around the circuit of the whirlpool and
pulled 'em out. They were helpless and pretty near drowned, but by
rolling 'em on a barrel they got the water out of 'em so that they
finally revived."

The hotel and village were strikingly quiet, and I wondered at the
absence of loafers and drinkers. The landlord explained in much disgust
that the place had voted no license. "That isn't the fault of the
village," said he, "but of the farmers out in the country--Methodists
and such. It has made this a dead town." That is, the saloons which were
formerly centers of noisy drunken sociability are now dull places.

"The region is prosperous," said my landlord, "but the farmers are often
pretty hard up for help. They used to depend largely on their own boys
to do the work. Of late years, however, the boys all have to be educated
and they leave the farm as soon as they can. The only boy who stays at
home to help the old man is the numskull who can't learn anything."

In the evening we had a little thunderstorm--a very slight affair
compared with some that visit the vicinity. It reminded the landlord of
an experience a few years previous. "I'd gone down to the river, about
two miles away one evening to fish," said he, "and was caught in a
series of thunderstorms which were so fierce they fairly made the earth
shake. I stayed in a fisherman's shack on the bank, and when I looked
out all I could see was just balls of fire flying through the air. The
storms kept coming up one right after the other all night long.

"I'd gone to fish for sturgeon. They run up the rapids about the middle
of June when the raspberries are in blossom. It took two men to do the
fishing. One would stand on the bank with a fat pine torch, and the
other, armed with a long pole that had a gaff on the end, would watch
till he saw a fish and then make a strike at it. I've caught lots of
sturgeon that would weigh over a hundred pounds apiece. They sometimes
grew to be eight or ten feet long and were so strong they'd pull a man
in."

[Illustration: _On the shores of Lake St. Louis_]

There are still sturgeon in the river, but the construction of a canal
around the rapids has so changed the conditions along shore that the
fishing has been abandoned. By way of this canal all the ordinary water
traffic passes up and down the valley; for the steamer that goes down
the Long Sault makes the trip merely for the purpose of giving a thrill
to tourists.

At the lower end of the canal is the busy manufacturing town of
Cornwall; but the attractions of the town itself appealed less to me
than the fact that in its vicinity was the Indian village of St. Regis.
The Indian community, however, is five miles down the river on the other
side. When I inquired how to get there someone recommended a certain old
man who owned a motor boat. I hunted him up and we went together to his
little shack of a boathouse. A small girl came and stood on the bank
watching our preparations to embark, and my ancient mariner chatted with
her affectionately. He called her "Beauty," and in an aside to me said
she was a favorite of his because her looks reminded him so much of his
first wife.

Presently the engine had been oiled and started and we pushed out of the
boathouse into the stream and sped away down the river aided by the
current and a brisk wind. The engine did not run very smoothly. Every
little while it gave an explosive snort and slowed down as if it
intended to quit work. But we kept on without a stop, dashing through
the crested waves and rounding point after point until the old man
called to me and pointing with his finger said: "St. Regis."

I looked and saw in the distance, close by the shore, a stone church and
some clustering homes. We soon made a landing, and I went up the bank
and rambled about the village. The church and the stone-walled,
low-roofed priest's house were within a few rods of the water. Behind
were the village dwellings strung along rough, narrow lanes; and there
were little fields of potatoes, corn and pumpkins, and thistle-grown
opens and pastures. The houses were nearly all small, and their aspect
was dismally barren and often shabby. At several places a tall wooden
cross was erected by the wayside. These crosses were praying places in
the processional religious ftes.

The church building was evidently not to be attributed to the taste and
enterprise of the Indians themselves. It was large, substantial and
well-proportioned. Indian individuality seemed, however, to find
expression in the unkempt burial place at one side of the edifice. Amid
the ragged growths of weeds and grass was an occasional gravestone, and
two or three graves were surrounded by rickety picket-fences, but the
only really conspicuous object was a weathercock that had formerly been
on the church spire and that had been replaced there by a gilt cross. It
was a grotesque sort of bird on an ornamental standard perhaps ten feet
high, and it looked very strange guarding the burial-place.

The day had been clear and sunny, but now big threatening clouds were
reaching up across the sky, and when I returned to the boat the prospect
was so stormy that my skipper hesitated to start. Soon, however, the sky
brightened, and we got under way right in the teeth of the wind so that
the spray from the white caps, as we bumped the waves, came flying over
me where I sat in the bow. The sun shone at intervals through the broken
clouds and illumined the river and the vast low landscape in a
many-colored pageant. Where the river was in sunlight it was a delicate
opaline tint, but under the cloud shadows it took on many a dusky tone
of darker green or blue. The fields and woods on the banks alternated in
the changing light and shadow from brilliant emerald to sober olive,
while the distance was purple or azure.

I was having a glorious voyage, and thinking how all this scenic
impressiveness must have appealed to the old French explorers when
suddenly our engine stopped. "It won't pump," said my skipper, "and it
has got so hot I don't dare let it work any longer."

Sure enough, the machinery was smoking, and there was a smell of burnt
oil in the air. We were in mid-river, far from our destination, with
desolate shores on either side, and wind and current against us. The
boat swung around helpless amid the buffeting waves, and we had nothing
with which to relieve the situation except one slender oar and a broken
paddle. I labored with the former and the skipper with the latter; but
the craft was too heavy and the elements too boisterous for us to make
much of a success of this sort of navigation. We could not prevent the
boat from swinging out of its course, and in order to correct its
erraticalness I had to shift my oar to the opposite side every few
minutes. So we were carried down stream in spite of all we could do.

[Illustration: _Lachine_]

At length the skipper started his engine and got us around a point to
where the current was less swift. Then he again had to shut off power
and we resumed our labor with the oar and the broken paddle. My
companion was by nature optimistic, and though he sometimes swore and
sometimes groaned, he every little while had an idea for fixing his
engine. His hands were too shaky for him to work with much expertness,
and again and again he abandoned the task and took up the paddle. Two or
three motor boats passed, but were far off across the great river. The
old man put his hands up at the sides of his mouth and tried to hail
them, and he swung his hat. But the people in the motor boats neither
saw nor heard and soon disappeared from view. Our own best speed would
hardly have rivalled that of a snail.

Finally an Indian came along in a skiff. I beckoned to him, and he
turned aside from his course, and when he drew near rested on his oars
and regarded us curiously. My skipper explained our trouble, and it was
agreed that the Indian should take me across the river and leave word at
a certain boathouse to send help to the castaway mariner. We got the old
man's craft to the shore and there left him. Then away we went over the
white-capped river. My oarsman was a sinewy fellow who kept steadily and
vigorously to his task, and after a long pull reached the opposite bank,
and I plodded back to town.

I had supper at a small hotel near the railroad station. My companions
at the table were of the working class, and while they ate they were
engaged in a continuous joking discussion of their escapades when drunk.
That they should get drunk was taken as a matter of course. Apparently
it was their view that no manly man would always keep sober, and even if
he had spells of being unquestionably vicious or beastly, that was
usually thought humorous by his mates. To smoke and spit in public
places, to swear and swagger and guzzle seems to be the ambition of a
very large proportion of the Canadian youths. Their elders set the pace.
I remember seeing a white-haired, spectacled man in a street car who
proclaimed his nationality by singing "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled"
as he marched up and down the aisle; and each time he made a step he
wound the leg he lifted around the other in a most ecstatic manner.
Drinking is the habit of the country and is not confined to any
particular class.

In continuing down the river from the Long Sault, there is a
considerable interval of smooth water before the Coteau Rapids are
reached. The steamer makes the descent of these by a tortuous channel
that winds in and out among numerous islands. At times the vessel
almost brushes the trees on shore as it sweeps swiftly along.

Seven miles farther on are Cedar Rapids, which are commonly held to be
the most beautiful of the entire series, and immediately afterward occur
the Split Rock Rapids. The latter are sentineled at the entrance by
submerged and ominous boulders, and they are particularly difficult to
navigate. Next comes the white-crested turbulence of the Cascade Rapids,
and then for a dozen miles the river is a broad expanse known as Lake
St. Louis.

Charles Dickens made this river trip in 1842, but travelled by
stagecoach around the more violent rapids. He mentions being much
impressed by the rafts which then were frequently seen floating down the
river. One of these that he describes as "gigantic" had "some thirty or
forty wooden houses on it, and at least as many flag masts so that it
looked like a nautical street." In those days all the lumber from the
regions above was floated down the St. Lawrence in this manner. After
the raft reached its destination it was broken up, the materials were
sold and the boatmen returned for more.

When Lake St. Louis is passed, and the river contracts to its normal
width its main mass flows south of the great Island of Montreal. At the
left, on the island, is the town of Lachine. This place was begun by La
Salle, who arrived in Montreal in the spring of 1666. Most of the island
was then in the control of a corporation of priests, styled the Seminary
of St. Sulpice. Montreal was very much exposed to Indian attacks, and
the priests wanted to extend a thin line of settlements along the front
of their island to serve as protecting outposts. So they granted to La
Salle, on easy terms, a large tract of land some eight or nine miles up
the river. Though the tract was dangerously exposed, its situation was
very advantageous for the fur trade, and La Salle soon interested others
in the enterprise and began the improvement of his domain. He laid out
the boundaries of a palisaded village, assigning to each settler about a
third of an acre within the inclosure and about forty acres outside. For
his own personal use he reserved three hundred acres and built on it a
stout stone house near the waterside.

The Indians soon began to visit the secluded settlement, and La Salle
learned the languages and dialects of seven or eight different tribes.
Some of the more western of these visitors told him of a river called
the Ohio which started in their country and flowed toward the sunset to
a sea that was many months' journey distant. La Salle shared the common
fancy of the times that a passage might exist through the American
continent to the South Sea, and he concluded that this Ohio River flowed
into the Gulf of California. He was eager to explore it, and in order to
gain the means for the journey he induced the Seminary to buy back most
of his Lachine domain, and he found another customer for the rest. The
expedition started in midsummer, 1669, and it reached the Ohio and
followed that river down as far as Louisville. Then various troubles and
difficulties obliged La Salle to turn back. On his return to
civilization Lachine received the name it bears in derision of the young
explorer's attempt to find a western passage to China.

Lachine had an anxious time in its early years, for it was peculiarly
open to the raids of the warlike and powerful Iroquois. Champlain had
come into violent collision with these Indians soon after the first
permanent settlement was made in the St. Lawrence valley, and they had
never been really friendly with the French since. That they were not
always openly hostile was due to diplomacy and the efforts of the
missionaries. Circumstances led them to a somewhat loose alliance with
the English, and they helped the latter to divert the fur trade of the
Great Lakes away from the St. Lawrence. This trade was almost the only
means of subsistence to the French, and when they attempted to retaliate
the Iroquois could be restrained no longer. The result was that in 1689
there was great suffering in all the little settlements on the upper
river. No one was safe who ventured out of the hastily-built stockade
forts, the fields were left untilled, and the Indians prowled about
waylaying convoys and killing or capturing stragglers. Their movements
were so mysterious and their attacks so sudden that the settlers lived
in a state of constant dread.

One night a violent hail-storm burst over Lake St. Louis. In the midst
of this tempest fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors landed at Lachine, and
posted themselves unperceived about the houses of the sleeping settlers.
Then they screeched their warwhoop, and began the most frightful
massacre in Canadian history. The houses were burned, and men, women and
children indiscriminately butchered. In the neighborhood were several
stockade forts, and only three miles away was an encampment of two
hundred soldiers. At four o'clock in the morning the troops in the camp
heard a cannon-shot from one of the forts. They were at once ordered
under arms. Soon afterward, a man, just escaped from the massacre, came
running to them, and after telling his story, hurried on toward
Montreal. Then a number of fugitives appeared, chased by a band of
Iroquois, who gave over the pursuit at sight of the soldiers, but
pillaged several houses before their eyes.

Presently, when about a hundred armed inhabitants had joined the troops
they moved together toward Lachine. The houses were still burning, and
the bodies of their inmates were strewn among them. An escaped prisoner
brought the information that the Indians were all encamped a mile and a
half farther on, most of them helplessly drunk with brandy taken from
the houses of the traders. The leader of the troops would have led his
force against them, but just then orders came from the governor at
Montreal to run no risks and stand solely on the defensive. They
therefore retired to one of the forts. The next day a detachment of
eighty men from another fort attempted to join them; but they were
attacked by the Iroquois, who had slept off the effect of their orgies,
and in full sight of their fellow-soldiers were nearly all killed or
captured.

Montreal was wild with terror, though it was fortified with palisades
and there were troops in the town under the governor himself. The fears
of the panic-stricken people were not realized, for town and forts were
left unmolested. The Indians contented themselves with burning all the
houses and barns for nine miles around, while small parties pillaged and
scalped at twice that distance. Their own losses were insignificant,
consisting of a few warriors killed and three drunken stragglers
captured. These prisoners, when they came to their senses, defied their
guards and fought with such ferocity that it was necessary to shoot
them.

[Illustration: _An old farmhouse_]

For two months the invaders continued to roam the vicinity, and then
most of them took to their canoes and recrossed Lake St. Louis in a
body, giving ninety yells to show they had that number of prisoners in
their clutches. There were enough other captives to make fully one
hundred and twenty in all, and about two hundred persons had been
killed. The Indians camped on the other side of the lake and began to
torture and devour their prisoners, and from the strand of Lachine
sorrowing groups of whites saw the fires gleaming along the distant
shore where their friends and relatives were suffering. The greater part
of the prisoners, however, were reserved to be carried to the towns of
the Indians and there tortured for the diversion of the inhabitants.

It was at one time the hope of the French to win over the Iroquois in a
body by wholesale conversion to the Faith; but this attempt failed. So
beside the St. Lawrence on the south side of the river nearly opposite
Lachine they established a village which should be the home of such
converts as they could gain. In 1736 the number of warriors at this
village of Caughnawaga, a name that means praying Indians, was estimated
at three hundred. They could not be trusted to fight their kinsmen, but
willingly made forays against the English borders. Like the other
Canadian missions Caughnawaga was of value to the Church, the army and
the fur trade. It had a chapel, fortifications and storehouses. The
present town has a population of nearly three thousand. Its people are
devoted adherents of the Roman Catholic faith, and each year, in June,
join in the celebration of the Fte Dieu, accoutered in their tribal
paint and ornaments.

From the Lachine shore I could see Caughnawaga's slender church spire
and close-set homes on the opposite bank vague in the silvery haze of
the distance, and I was enticed to go across and visit the place. I
journeyed over the river in a rude, stumpy steam ferryboat that made two
trips a day. The village was strung along on a low rocky bluff that
affords an agreeable outlook on the swift, clear river. There was no
apparent method in the layout of the town. The streets went
helter-skelter, and the houses seemed placed by chance, with very little
foresight in the matter of personal or community convenience. Through
the midst of the homes that gathered along the riverfront there was a
straggling ungraded stony road with plenty of mudholes for variety. It
was irregularly rutted with the tracks of wheels that showed how the
teams had wandered hither and thither in a hopeless attempt to find a
route that was both firm and smooth. One short portion of the street had
a few shade trees, and there were often unkempt fruit trees back of the
houses. Some of these houses were reasonably large and well-built, but
the majority were small and shabby. Occasionally the walls were of logs,
but frame houses were more common, and there were a considerable number
made of stone. To repair or improve a building was evidently a last
resort, and you felt yourself to be in a community of incompetents or of
persons with some curious mental bias. Many of the men are employees in
the outlying Montreal manufactories and do fairly well, though very
rarely becoming skilled workmen. Near the houses were little gardens
where grew corn, potatoes and weeds. I observed no tendency to cultivate
flowers or to in any way beautify the surroundings of the dwellings. In
a number of houses a room or a corner of it was devoted to a little
store, and there was a display of goods in the front window. But the
window was ill-suited for such use, and the goods were too unattractive
in themselves and too poorly displayed to be tempting.

The church was large and substantial, and its gritty, deep-worn floor
attested the devotion of the Indians to their religion. I could not help
fancying that the gaudiness of the altar decorations and the sufferings
depicted in the colored pictures on the walls had something to do with
the worshippers' attachment to the church. On the borders of the village
was their cemetery surrounded by a stout wire fence. A few of the graves
were marked with stones, but most had merely a wooden cross set up that
in a few years would decay and disappear.

Caughnawaga has a melancholy connection with one of the most tragic
events in the history of New England--the destruction of Deerfield by
the French and Indians in 1704. Many captives were taken through the
winter snows to Canada, and Eunice Williams, the little daughter of the
Deerfield minister, was lodged among these mission Indians. Most of the
captives were ransomed later, but the Indians, or the missionaries in
their name, would not let the little girl go. Her father visited her
soon after she had been sent to the mission, and lest she should become
a convert to the Catholic religion, exhorted her to remember all the
pious teachings of her home. "She is there still," writes Williams two
years later, "and has forgotten to speak English." What grieved him
still more, she had forgotten her catechism.

[Illustration: _Sailing vessels at the Montreal wharves_]

Time went on, and Eunice Williams, the namesake of her mother who had
been slaughtered on the march northward, remained in the wigwams of the
Caughnawagas. She was baptized and eventually married an Indian of the
tribe, who thenceforward called himself Williams. Their children
therefore bore her family name. Her father, who went back to his
parish at Deerfield, never ceased to pray for her return to her country
and her faith. She actually made a visit to her relations in 1740,
dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian blanket; but nothing would
persuade her to stay. On one occasion she was induced to put on
civilized dress and go to church; yet immediately after the service she
impatiently discarded her gown and resumed her blanket. She came again
the next year, bringing two of her half-breed children, and twice
afterward repeated the visit. She and her husband were offered a tract
of land if they would settle in New England; but she positively refused
saying that it would endanger her soul. She lived to a great age, a
squaw to the last.

The case of Eunice Williams was far from being an isolated one, and a
missionary at the Indian town of St. Francis, writing in 1866, remarks,
"If one should trace out all the English families brought into Canada by
the Indians, one would be astonished at the number of persons who today
are indebted to these savages for the blessing of being Catholics and
the advantage of being Canadians."

A little below Caughnawaga are the Lachine Rapids with a fall of
forty-five feet. Not many years ago long rowboats manned by the Indians
used to shoot the rapids conveying parties of tourists but the
present-day Indians seem to have less aquatic skill than their
predecessors, and the pastime has been abandoned. To look at the white
tumult of the rushing flood one would not think a small boat could
withstand the stress, but the Indians were so thoroughly acquainted with
the shoals and rocks and the frantic humors of the fierce current that
the feat was accomplished with safety.

The first white man to brave these rapids was a youth who, on the tenth
of June, 1611, went with two Indians to shoot herons on an island. He
was drowned on the way down. A few days later another white man came
down safely with a party of Hurons among whom he had spent the winter.
Champlain was the third to make the descent. He had been conferring with
the Indians at the upper end of the island, and they took him down the
rapids in their birchen boats, somewhat to the discomposure of his
nerves, as he admits.

Of course the modern passage down the rapids in a steamboat is
comparatively prosaic, but there is nevertheless a certain sense of
peril, and it is reassuring to know that not an accident of any
consequence has happened, nor has a single life been lost for many
years. As the vessel approaches the really tumultuous part of the rapids
there is a long prelude of swift water that boils and writhes ominously.
At length the current roughens into foamy surges and you can feel the
griping clutches of the demoniac water beneath the boat. Yet the motion
of the vessel never becomes so violent as to be dismaying. It is simply
a slide down a turbulent liquid hill, and only some very unlikely
internal disablement of the vessel could produce a possibility of
disaster. The wilder portion of the rapids is passed in a few minutes
and the boat is again in a torrent that only heaves and twists.

It was late in the afternoon of a beautiful September day that I made
the trip. The atmosphere was clear, and I could look far off over the
broad landscape, and in the remote east could see some mountain ranges
lying blue and serene along the horizon. The near shore of Montreal
Island was luxuriantly fringed with trees amid which I got glimpses of
homes dotted along near the waterside, while on ahead, golden in the
light of sunset, was the smoke-plumed, wide-spreading city with its many
spires and domes, and behind it the guardian height of Mount Royal. The
steamer was still in mid-stream and there was not yet any cessation in
the boiling swiftness of the current when we passed between two of the
mighty piers of the Victoria Bridge. Not until we were in the harbor
close to our dock did we reach quiet water.

The rapids all occur between Prescott and Montreal, and the journey down
requires only a few hours, but the steamer's return with the necessity
of moving slowly in the canals and loitering through numerous locks
consumes a night and part of two days. In early times, before the advent
of the canals, this up-river journey in small boats was not only slow
but arduous. One of the Jesuit missionaries writing of his experiences
in climbing the rapids says:

[Illustration: _The Chateau de Ramezay_]

"It is often necessary to alight from the canoe and walk in the river.
The canoe is grasped with the hand and dragged behind, two men usually
sufficing for this. I sometimes took a hand in helping my savages; but
the bottom of the river is full of stones so sharp that I could not walk
long, being barefooted. There are portages of one, two and three
leagues, and it is necessary to carry all the baggage through woods or
over high and troublesome rocks, as well as the canoes themselves.
This is not done without much work, for several trips must be made, no
matter how few packages one has."

To preserve the good nature of his "savages" the missionary tried to
never keep them waiting when they were ready to embark, and at the
portages he helped with the burdens. Even if he carried no more than a
kettle the Indians were pleased. He was provided with a "burning-mirror"
which he used on sunny days to make a mid-day campfire or light the
boatmen's pipes; and he had a tinder-box to start a fire in the evening.

The canals around the Cascade, Cedar and Coteau Rapids were begun at the
time of the American Revolution and were the first on this continent.
Not until long afterward was work started on the Lachine Canal, and it
was 1821 when it was ready for use.




IV

EARLY MONTREAL


The situation of Montreal makes it a natural center of human travel and
traffic. It is at the foot of the last of the St. Lawrence rapids, and
near the mouth of the Ottawa which comes in from the north, and it is
within a short distance overland of the Richelieu which flows from the
south. This position was of importance even in the prehistoric Indian
days. Many a barbaric fight must have taken place in the neighborhood,
and many a canoe full of painted warriors must have crept stealthily
along the shore of Montreal Island with intent to surprise their
enemies.

Cartier had found a populous Indian town at the foot of Mount Royal, but
when Champlain visited the island in 1603 the town had vanished.
Doubtless enemies had wiped it out. Montreal was the gateway to the
Indian country west and north, and in 1611 Champlain resorted thither to
consider establishing there a permanent trading-post. It was about the
time of year that the Indians from the far interior brought their furs
down the river, and a crowd of adventurers eager to barter for this
wilderness wealth followed in Champlain's wake in a fleet of boats and
small vessels. Shortly after they reached their destination a party of
Hurons was seen coming down the Lachine Rapids, their birch canoes
dancing through the foam and spray of the angry torrent. As they drew
near the landing, the fur-traders blazed out a clattering fusillade of
welcome--a form of greeting so unfamiliar to the savages that they were
greatly terrified, and it was only after a good deal of hesitation that
they would venture to land. Other parties of Indians arrived later and
they all camped along the waterside.

The traders, in jealous competition for the beaver skins the savages had
brought, left them no peace, and they were increasingly alarmed and
suspicious. Late one night they awakened Champlain and conducted him to
their camp where the whole company was in solemn conclave around the
glimmering firelight. They trusted him, but were convinced that the
lawless bands of rival traders intended to plunder and kill them.
Champlain tried in vain to reassure the perturbed warriors. They were so
vividly impressed with the fancied peril of their present position that
they removed in a body to the borders of Lake St. Louis a number of
miles up the river, thus placing the rapids between them and the objects
of their alarm.

Champlain concluded that conditions were not propitious for establishing
a permanent colony at Montreal. Its importance as a trading-post grew,
however, though it was occupied only a part of the year until 1642. The
settlement of the place at that time was due to some religious
enthusiasts in France, one of whom was commanded in a vision to become
the founder of a new order of hospital nuns on the Island of Montreal in
the St. Lawrence. He interested others in the project, and at length an
expedition was dispatched under the command of a devout and gallant
gentleman named Maisonneuve, who mustered forty men and four women for
the enterprise.

After they had started on their voyage across the Atlantic the French
Associates who were responsible for the new settlement that was to be
founded in the wilderness gathered at Paris in the Church of Notre Dame.
There, before the altar of the Virgin, they consecrated the settlement
to the Holy Family and named it Villemarie de Montreal.

The voyagers arrived at Quebec in 1641, but too late to ascend to
Montreal that season. During the winter they built boats, and early in
May they embarked to go on up the river. The boats consisted of a
pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft moved by sails, and two rowboats.
Deep-laden with men, arms and stores, the boats moved slowly on their
way, and on the eighteenth of the month the little company landed where
the great docks of the modern city now are. Here a rivulet joined the
St. Lawrence, and beyond a meadow that bordered the brook rose the
forest.

Maisonneuve sprang ashore and fell on his knees. His followers imitated
his example, and all joined their voices in songs of thanksgiving.
Afterward they erected an altar and transferred their goods to the
shore. Presently the twilight came on and fireflies twinkled over the
darkening meadow. Then the pioneers pitched their tents, lighted their
bivouac fires, stationed their guards and lay down to rest.

In the morning work was resumed. Maisonneuve himself hewed down the
first tree to be used in making a strong palisade around their camp.
This palisade was soon completed, a chapel of bark was built to protect
their altar, and log cabins to take the place of the tents. On Sundays
they would stroll over the meadow and among the trees of the forest.

The summer passed prosperously, but in December the St. Lawrence rose
threateningly. They tried the efficacy of prayer, and Maisonneuve
planted a wooden cross in the path of the advancing flood and vowed that
should it spare their settlement he would bear another cross on his
shoulders up the neighboring mountain, and place it on the summit. The
water continued to rise, filled the fort ditch and crept up to the foot
of the palisade; but there it stopped, and at length it receded to its
proper channel. In order to fulfill his promise, Maisonneuve now set his
men at work to clear a path through the forest to the top of the
mountain. A large cross was made, and the inhabitants went in solemn
procession to the destined spot the commandant walking in the rear and
carrying the cross, which was so heavy it taxed his utmost strength to
climb the steep and rugged path. They planted the sacred symbol on the
highest crest, and all knelt in adoration before it. There the cross
long remained, an object of pilgrimage to the pious colonists of
Villemarie.

The next year new recruits came from France, and some progress was made
in converting the Indians. Quebec and Three Rivers were the only other
settlements in the great valley. These and the scattered missions had a
total white population of scarcely more than three hundred souls, and
comprised the whole of New France. None of the river settlements were
safe from Indian forays, and Montreal was particularly exposed. It was
an outpost almost in the path of the war parties, and in 1643 those
human wolves of the forest, the Iroquois, discovered the new village.
Thenceforth its inhabitants had no peace. The men were obliged to go
armed to their work, and they returned at the sound of a bell, marching
in compact order prepared for an attack.

Three of a party of six who were hewing timber within gunshot of the
fort were killed and the rest taken prisoners. One of these prisoners
later escaped, but the other two were burned alive. Sometimes a solitary
savage skulking in the woodland terrorized the community, and again a
hundred or more warriors hovered in the vicinity.

A number of dogs that were brought from France proved a great aid in
scenting the presence of foes. Chief among these was a female named
Pilot, who every morning made it her habit to go the rounds of the
adjacent fields and forest with a troop of her offspring at her heels.
When she detected any of the Iroquois she set up a furious barking and
the entire squad of dogs ran pell-mell to the fort.

On the morning of March 30, 1644, Pilot and her followers came running
over the clearing from the eastward, all giving tongue together with
unusual vehemence. The men in the fort wanted to go to the woods and see
if the enemy was really there. Maisonneuve, who had taken care to avoid
risks in the past to a degree that made some of his soldiers murmur and
hint that he lacked courage, now responded that they might make ready
and he would lead them himself. When preparations were complete, thirty
men left the fort and betook themselves to the forest, wading cautiously
along through the deep snow until they were greeted with the screeches
of a numerous body of Iroquois who sprang up from their lurking places
and showered the French with bullets and arrows.

[Illustration: _The Place d'Armes and Notre Dame Cathedral_]

Maisonneuve ordered his men to shelter themselves behind the trees, and
there they made a resolute defence for a long time; but the Iroquois
were creeping closer, three of the whites were already killed, several
were wounded, and their ammunition was failing. A retreat was begun,
steady at first, but gradually becoming confused through the eagerness
of the men to escape from the galling fire of the Indians. The
commandant remained at the rear, aiding the wounded and encouraging the
others of his party, who from time to time paused to fire back and check
the pursuit. When they presently got to a sledge track where the snow
was firm underfoot the men could restrain their terror no longer, and
they ran in a body for the fort.

Maisonneuve was left alone, retreating backward and holding his pursuers
in check with a pistol in each hand. The chief of the savages made a
dash at the Frenchman, hoping to take him prisoner. Maisonneuve snapped
his pistol at him, but it missed fire. The Iroquois had, however, paused
a moment, and as he again sprang forward Maisonneuve with his remaining
pistol shot him dead. In the confusion that followed, the French
commander reached the shelter of the fort in safety. The spot where he
fired the shot that saved him is now known, in commemoration of his
deed, as the Place d'Armes, and is a small park in front of the great
Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the city.

Montreal grew slowly and in 1659 it consisted of about forty small
dwellings ranged parallel to the river, a little back from the
waterside. On the left was a fort, and on rising ground at the right was
a massive stone windmill enclosed with a palisade pierced for musketry,
and answering the purpose of a blockhouse. From the borders of the
hamlet, fields studded with charred and blackened stumps, between which
crops were growing, stretched away to the edges of the neighboring
forest, and a mile away rose the grim, shaggy Mount Royal. The laborers
always carried their guns to the fields, and often had need to use them.
There was, however, no important affray in the vicinity until 1689 when
the great Indian massacre at Lachine occurred.

Anxiety lest there should be other assaults by the savages long
continued, and the very next year it was reported that Lake St. Louis
was all covered with canoes coming down the river. The people of
Montreal were much startled, cannon were fired to call in the troops
from the detached posts, and the wildest excitement prevailed until it
was learned that the canoes conveyed friends, not enemies. The Indians
were from the upper lakes and were coming to market with their beaver
skins. For several years they had done their trading with the English,
but reports of English and Iroquois defeats had made them turn again to
the French. They all descended the rapids and landed near the town, and
a few days later another large fleet of fur-laden canoes, manned by
French traders, arrived. Never had Canada experienced such an inflow of
wealth.

The Indians painted, greased and befeathered themselves, and then
mustered for the grand council that always preceded the opening of the
market. Frontenac, at that time governor of New France, was present, and
roused the savages to enthusiasm by taking a hatchet, brandishing it in
the air and singing a war-song. The principal Frenchmen who were with
him followed his example, and the whole assembly fell to stamping and
screeching like madmen.

Then came a solemn war-feast. Two oxen and six large dogs had been
chopped to pieces for the occasion, and boiled with a quantity of
prunes; and there was wine and an abundance of tobacco. Both whites and
Indians agreed to wage war to the death on the Iroquois and English.
Scarcely was the feast over when reports came of a hostile English
expedition coming down the Richelieu from Lake Champlain. Preparations
were made to meet this force, but the days passed and the enemy did not
appear. Frontenac concluded that they had been needlessly alarmed, and
the Indians, who would delay their homeward voyage no longer, were
dismissed with ample presents. But soon afterward cannon were heard
booming on the opposite shore. The settlement of La Prairie had been
attacked by a raiding party of twenty-nine whites and one hundred and
twenty Indians. A guard of French soldiers at La Prairie was assisting
the inhabitants to reap in the wheatfields. Twenty-five were killed or
captured, many cattle were destroyed, and houses and barns and hayricks
burned.

[Illustration: _At the entrance to the Lachine Canal_]

This much done, the invaders sat down in the woods to eat dinner, while
cannon answered cannon from Chambly and Montreal and the fort at La
Prairie. The English were not in the least frightened by all this noise.
Indeed, they seemed to find it entertaining, for the commander in
describing the experience wrote that: "We thanked the Governor of
Canada for his salute of heavy artillery during our meal."

The expedition, as originally planned, contemplated the capture of
Montreal, but mismanagement ruined it almost at the start, and only this
handful attempted to go to Canada. Nor was their success of any actual
advantage. The blow they dealt was, in fact, less an injury to the
French than an insult.

It was the Indians, rather than the English, who were the real scourge
of Canada; but the savages suffered such serious reverses themselves in
their warfare against the French that more than once they made overtures
for peace. The whites were quite ready to cease hostilities on condition
that the savages should return their captives, and in 1700 a deputation
of Iroquois warriors came to Montreal and delivered up thirteen
prisoners. There were other French captives in their villages, but these
had become attached to Indian life and would not leave it. After some
palaver peace was made, and the Governor of the colony said: "I bury the
hatchet in a deep hole, and over the hole I place a great rock, and over
the rock I turn a river, that the hatchet may never be dug up again."

To confirm the treaty a grand council of all concerned met in Montreal
the next year. The Iroquois and the western and northern Indians came
down the river in hundreds of canoes and were greeted by a salute of
cannon. A great quantity of evergreen boughs had been gathered for their
use, and of these they made their wigwams outside the palisades. When
the conference began one great difficulty was encountered. Both the
Iroquois and the other Indians, their enemies, who were the allies of
the French, had many prisoners they had captured from each other, and it
had been agreed that these should be brought to the council for a
general exchange. But only the allies had complied, and they were
greatly incensed at the failure of the Iroquois to do as they had done.
Their leader, a chief known as "The Rat," though so weakened by fever
that he could not stand, made a two-hour speech to the assembly, seated
in an arm-chair. When the meeting ended, he was completely exhausted,
and he died that night.

The French charged themselves with the funeral rites. On a robe of
beaver skin, in his wigwam, the dead chief lay in state swathed in a
scarlet blanket, with a kettle, a gun and a sword at his side to be
buried with him for his use in the world of spirits. Though the
Iroquois were his deadliest foes, sixty of them came in solemn
procession, ranged themselves around his bier and one of them delivered
an eulogy in which he declared that the sun had covered its face that
day in grief for the great Huron. When he was buried an escort of troops
led the funeral train, followed by sixteen Huron warriors clad in robes
of beaver skin, marching by fours with blackened faces and guns
reversed. Then came the clergy, and next six war-chiefs carrying the
coffin. It was decorated with flowers, and on it lay a plumed hat, a
sword and a gorget. Behind it came numerous other warriors and French
military officers. After the service the soldiers fired three volleys
over the grave. All this ceremony pleased the Indians and helped to a
final agreement with regard to the articles of peace.

The fourth of August was named for the grand council. A vast oblong
space on a plain near the town was enclosed with a fence of branches.
Troops were stationed along the sides, and at one end was a canopy of
boughs under which there were seats filled by ladies, officials, and the
chief inhabitants of Montreal. The governor sat in front surrounded by
interpreters, and the Indians, more than thirteen hundred in number,
were seated on the grass around the open space. The savages were
painted with divers hues and patterns, and wore their dress of
ceremony--leathern shirts that were fringed with scalp-locks, and
colored blankets or robes of bison hide and beaver skin, while their
heads bristled with crests of hair, eagle feathers, or antlers.

The governor made a speech and a representative of each of the
thirty-one tribes which had members present responded. Then the peace
pipe was passed around, and the treaty was duly signed, each tribal
representative affixing his mark in the shape of some bird, beast, fish
or other object.

[Illustration: _In the marketplace near the Nelson Monument_]

With the passing years Indian aggressions became increasingly rare; but
the savages as hunters and trappers long continued to be of vital
importance in the material welfare of Canada. Early in the eighteenth
century small quantities of timber and wheat began to be exported, yet
the country was still chiefly dependent on the traffic in beaver skins.
To induce the Indians to come to the settlements annual fairs were
inaugurated at Montreal and Three Rivers. That at the former place was
particularly important, and on the day following the arrival of the
fleet of pelt-laden canoes a grand council was held on the common
between the river and St. Paul Street. The gathering was a strange
medley of Indians, French bush-rangers, greedy traders, priests and
nuns, and officials.

In these years of peace the town gradually grew and in 1760 it had nine
thousand inhabitants and was somewhat larger than Quebec. Early in
September of that year an English expedition landed at Lachine. It had
come down the river, and in running the rapids no less than forty-six of
its boats had been totally wrecked, and nearly a hundred men drowned.
But this was far from crippling it, and the invaders were soon encamped
before the town walls. Montreal was at that time a long narrow
assemblage of wooden and stone houses, churches and convents, surrounded
by a bastioned stone wall made for defence against Indians, but
incapable of resisting cannon. The town was crowded with refugees, and
could muster only about twenty-five hundred defenders while the English
forces in the vicinity numbered seventeen thousand. To fight would
plainly be a waste of life, and the place capitulated. The English had
overrun the rest of the valley and all of Canada now became a possession
of the British Crown.

France did not lose its colony with unalloyed regret; for there were
those to whom it did not seem altogether desirable. Voltaire, writing a
year or two previous, said: "France and England are at war for several
acres of snow, and are spending in the fight more than the whole of
Canada is worth." In the same vein, at another time, he described the
country as "covered with snow and ice for eight months of the year, and
inhabited by barbarians, bears and beavers."

Similar feeling was voiced by Madame la Pompadour who, when it was
learned that Quebec had been taken, is reported to have exclaimed with
decidedly more elation than regret: "At last the king will be able to
sleep peacefully."

For good or for ill France was no more to control the destiny of "My
Lady of the Snows," as Canada is sometimes called. The domain that
passed into English hands was of tremendous extent, yet after all it had
only a population of seventy thousand at this time. Seldom has a
vanquished country been treated with more consideration and generosity.
Free exercise of religion was assured to the people, and they were to
remain in full enjoyment of their property, including negro and Indian
slaves. But a good many of the old patrician families would not change
their allegiance and removed to France. This was a great loss to the St.
Lawrence country. However, their places were gradually filled by
emigrants from England, Scotland and Ireland, and there was an
ever-rising tide of thrift and prosperity.




V

THE MONTREAL OF TODAY


Montreal, with its population of four hundred thousand, is the financial
and manufacturing metropolis of the dominion. Yet it is only
comparatively recently that it became one of the great American cities.
As late as 1810 it had no more than twelve thousand inhabitants, and it
did not pass the hundred thousand mark until 1870. The secret of its
growth lies in the fact that it occupies the center of a fertile plain
nearly as large as England and stands at the head of ocean navigation.
Its advantages as a distributing point make it Canada's chief port.
Formerly its harbor was inaccessible to vessels drawing more than eleven
feet of water on account of shallows down the river, but about 1850 the
channel was deepened by dredging to twenty-seven feet, and the largest
ships from the Atlantic can now come directly to its piers. Probably
most people do not realize that Montreal is three hundred miles nearer
to Liverpool than is New York, and one-third of the whole distance to
Europe is by way of the smooth waters of the St. Lawrence. The river,
however, is closed to navigation from the end of November to the
beginning of April.

Montreal is on an island of the same name, and this island is thirty-two
miles long and from six to ten miles wide. By far the greater part of
the river flows to the south of it, and the city extends from the busy
wharves with their great warehouses and steamers and lesser craft back
to the steep wooded sides of Mount Royal. The population is constantly
becoming more cosmopolitan, yet more than half of it is still French. It
is an attractive city in certain sections and occasional spots, but as a
whole it impresses the stranger as dirty and dishevelled. Buildings that
are dismally old and battered are plentiful right in the business
center; and on the outskirts, in most directions, you find a
helter-skelter of manufactories with their smoke-belching chimneys and
untidy surroundings. But there is no questioning the charm of the fine
residence district, or that of the parks, or the attractiveness of many
of the city buildings to which age or noble architecture, often combined
with impressive size, lend distinction.

In historic interest the structure that excels all others is the Chateau
de Ramezay, built by Claude de Ramezay, Governor of Montreal, in 1705.
Its age, its association with important events and its quiet and massive
dignity combine to make it a fascinating landmark. From the crest of the
hill on which it stands a little back from the river, the chateau used
to command a wide view of the stream in both directions. But this view
is curtailed now by tall buildings that crowd around the old mansion. In
front is a narrow grassy yard with two or three old cannon on the sward,
and this yard is separated from the busy street by an iron fence with
sturdy stone gateposts. The walls of the chateau are fully two feet
thick, there are turrets at the corners and dormer windows in its broad,
low-reaching roof. In the days of its glory it doubtless ranked as
palatial. Within its venerable walls, after the fall of Quebec, in 1760,
arrangements were completed for the withdrawal of the last French
garrison from Montreal, by which act the finest colony of France became
the possession of England. The chateau was then in the heart of the most
fashionable and important part of the town, and for years after the
British conquest it was the official residence of the English governors.

At the time of the American invasion of Canada, early in the
Revolution, three commissioners representing the rebelling colonies were
sent to Montreal to attempt to win over the people of this northern
realm to the American cause. They held their councils in the Chateau de
Ramezay, which was the headquarters of the invading army. One of the
commissioners was Benjamin Franklin. In order to prepare printed matter
for distribution he brought with him a printer named Mesplat, for there
was no printer in Montreal at that time. Mesplat's type cases and hand
press were given space in the basement of the chateau and there he did
his work. The approach of a hostile force put the commissioners to
flight, but Mesplat remained in Montreal where he soon afterward began
to publish the weekly _Gazette_, a newspaper still issued, and the
oldest in this part of Canada.

In 1778 the chateau became the property of the British Government, and
in the century and more following it served various purposes. For a
while it was the government headquarters, and there was a time when it
housed a normal school, and for another period was in use for a medical
branch of Laval University, and it also did duty as an annex to the
court house. Finally it came into possession of the Montreal
Antiquarian Society, and it today shelters what is perhaps the finest
collection of historical works, portraits, and other relics in the
country. Could anyone wish it a more appropriate fate?

I was interested in the quaint old rooms and their abounding memorials
of the past, and I was no less interested in certain comments of one of
the woman guardians of the treasures who criticised in a sociable and
friendly way the Americans who visited the chateau. "I never saw such
people for hurrying," said she. "They drive to the chateau in their
carriages and jump out and run through here as if they were going to a
house a-fire. I sometimes ask if the Old Nick is after them. What good
do they get from such a hasty glimpse of the things we have here? If I
was them I wouldn't take the trouble to get out of the carriages. Of
course there are a few not quite so rapid. I remember one man who
stopped to look at the picture post cards we have to sell, and he picked
up one with the Victoria Bridge on it, and says: 'Is that the bridge I
crossed coming into Montreal from America?'

"'And where do you think you are now but in America?' I said."

[Illustration: _The river road on Montreal Island_]

"Your people have an idea that the United States is all there is to the
whole continent. I think they do not study geography enough in your
schools."

"I have been in New England. Many people from Canada are living in the
mill towns there. Once I was in a manufacturing place in Connecticut and
rode in an electric car. It was crowded with men, women and
children--and yet they spoke not a word of English--nothing but French.
'Great Scott!' I said, 'what a lot of Canadians there are here! Have I
got into Montreal without my knowledge?' They were all my compatriots.
Every man Jack of 'em was a Canadian."

On the square in front of the neighboring court house formerly stood the
town pillory, and here, in 1696, four Iroquois were burned by order of
Count Frontenac in reprisal for similar barbarism on the part of the
Indians.

Close by, within sight of the serene and stout old chateau, is the chief
city market. It is a perfect babel on market days. The country people
are there from all the region around with their wagon loads of produce;
and thither resort their customers, both dealers and private buyers.
They are sure to dispose of everything they bring and never have
left-over produce to carry home. Toward the close of the day, if a man
has not sold out, he may have to sacrifice something on price, but the
best of his load has been disposed of and he can afford to take less for
what remains. The most interesting portion of the market is not inside
of the great buildings, but in the open of a wide street on the hillside
below the Nelson monument. There the wagons back up against a broad walk
that affords a chance to partially remove their loads for the purpose of
display and still leave a passage along the middle of the walk for
customers.

A few blocks distant, on the hill, is the Place d'Armes, a little park
now hemmed in by the city but which was the scene of a desperate battle
with the Indians in the days of the first settlers. Facing it on the
south side is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with its two lofty towers. In
the west tower hangs the _Gros Bourdon_, one of the five largest bells
in the world. It weighs twelve tons. In the other tower hangs a chime of
bells, second to none in the northland. The church itself can easily
contain over ten thousand worshippers, and the only church on this side
of the Atlantic which exceeds it in capacity is the famous cathedral in
the city of Mexico. With the city crowding close around it, the
immensity of the building is not readily realized, though the town
vapors make the twin towers loom marvellously. In the dim quiet of the
vast interior, after the eyes become accustomed to the twilight, you see
that walls and ceiling and pillars, as well as all the furnishings are
gorgeously decorated. The abundance of color is perhaps rather florid,
yet it is not without an oriental richness that is quite satisfying.

There is a curious superstition that at the point where St. Sulpice and
Notre Dame Streets meet, close by the towering cathedral, the wind is
always blowing. The situation is naturally breezy; but there is a
miraculous explanation of the phenomenon that is far more interesting
than any scientific demonstration as to whys and wherefores. It seems
that one day, while the church was in process of building, the Wind and
the Devil were walking down Notre Dame Street; and the Devil after
regarding with a frown of disapproval the graceful outlines of the new
edifice rising before him exclaimed: "What is this? I never saw it
before."

"Very likely not," responded the Wind, "and I dare you to go in there."

"You dare me to do that, do you?" cried the Devil with a sneer. "Well, I
will go in if you will promise to wait here until I come out."

"Agreed," said the Wind.

So his Satanic Majesty went in. But he has not come out yet, and the
wind is still waiting for him at the corner.

Another church of notable size that the stranger should not fail to see
is the dome-surmounted edifice of St. James' Cathedral, modelled after
St. Peter's at Rome. I have named only the two largest churches; but the
leisurely visitor will find these far from being the only ones that
appeal to his interest; for places of worship abound to such a degree
that Montreal has become known as "The City of Churches." Many of the
edifices are impressively large, and the architecture of their spires,
towers or domes is so varied as to give each church an interesting
individuality and distinction.

A building of another sort which persons from the States will find of
interest is the plain, antiquated warehouse in Vaudreuil Lane where John
Jacob Astor laid the foundations of the Astor millions.

Of all the Montreal structures, probably none is so widely known as the
Victoria Bridge, the chief approach to the city from the south. I think
most persons are a little disappointed in the actuality. Its resounding
name is suggestive of a graceful stateliness, but it is simply a
criss-crossing of iron beams resting on monotonous stone piers, and its
chief claim to distinction is its great length of a mile and a quarter.
There are twenty-five spans. The original bridge was completed in 1859,
and the present one, which represents a cost of twenty million dollars,
was finished in 1899. It occupies the same piers as the older structure
and was put in place without interfering with the traffic. In the middle
is a span three hundred and thirty feet long, but the others are about a
hundred feet less.

On a clear day you get from the bridge a striking panoramic view of the
city with Mount Royal as a background. But a still better view of the
place can be had, a little below from Helen's Isle, one of the most
delightful of the city parks. This island, the name of which perpetuates
that of Champlain's young wife, was purchased with her money by her
famous husband. Somewhat later it was for a long period a French
military station. To this island Marquis de Levis, the last commander of
a French army in New France, retired and burned his flags in the
presence of his troops on the night before the surrender of the colony
to Great Britain. Here, beneath a "weeping elm," he signed the articles
of capitulation.

There is much fine farming land in the outlying region neighboring
Montreal, and it is a pleasure to drive or ramble amid the apple
orchards, smooth pastures and hay fields and the plots devoted to
vegetables, small fruits, corn and oats. To my thinking the farm
environment is seen at its best on the lower road to Lachine. The
outreaching of the suburbs has made chaos for the first few miles of the
road, but beyond is a tranquil, tree-bordered rural thoroughfare winding
along the river shore, and worthy even of Paradise. Graceful elms and
stalwart Lombardy poplars and the delicate-foliaged willows are the
prevailing trees. They only partially screen the river from sight and
allow frequent and enchanting views of the broad, swift stream. There is
a constant succession of homes along the way, some of them almost at the
waterside. The people seemed to have no fear of ravaging floods. On the
bank of most streams, so little above the ordinary level of the current,
the buildings could not exist for a single year. The flow of the St.
Lawrence, however, is largely equalized by its vast inland reservoirs,
the Great Lakes. In June the melting snows of the far north bring the
river up about six feet, but the stream can be depended on not to wildly
exceed its usual limits, and the people for the most part dwell in
safety and peace of mind alongside. The only exceptions are those who
occupy certain positions that are unduly exposed to the ice when it
breaks up in the spring.

Until recently one of the attractions of this lower road was the quaint
old stone house in which La Salle used to live. Even after it became a
ruin it was still interesting, but of late its walls have been
demolished to make fencing for the too thrifty owner of the property,
and only weed-grown remnants remain. Another relic of the past is a
windmill not far beyond the La Salle ruin; but it has lost its arms and
is a mere stump in a brushy clump of trees. However, buildings that date
back into the stirring past of the French rgime are not all obliterated
or ruinous. Some of the wayside farmhouses and barns are still
essentially what they were then, and it is a satisfaction to gaze on
their stout-walled simplicity.

The manufacturing town of Lachine presently interrupts the vernal
roadway; but farther on the rustic thoroughfare resumes its winding
course with bordering farms and summer homes and occasional toll-gates,
and idyllic outlooks on the wide, island-dotted Lake St. Louis.

When an opening in the trees or a lift of land gives a view in the other
direction Mount Royal's sturdy mass is the dominant note in the
landscape. This mountain is in reality the shoulders of a volcano with
the head blown off. In prehistoric ages it belched forth molten floods
and wrote its daily history against the sky in fire and smoke. At that
time it stretched the whole breadth of the island out into the present
channel on the south, while in the other direction it swept far back
toward the ancient Laurentide ranges. The loftiest fragment of its
dismantled body today is Mount Royal which rises nine hundred feet above
the sea, and seven hundred and forty above the river. Half a thousand
acres of Mount Royal's higher portion is a park where the forest is
preserved for the most part in a state of nature. The mountain rises
very steeply from behind the city, but the crest of the bluff is easily
reached by an incline elevator. A more agreeable way of going up and
down, however, is by the winding, shady drives and paths.

[Illustration: _The Lake of the Two Mountains_]

Cartier was the first white man to climb the height, and on it he
planted a cross and gave the mountain its name. "Therefrom one sees very
far," he wrote. The view is strikingly impressive. Immediately below,
the woodland descends steeply, and gradually merges into the city
streets. What a vast array of roofs and brick and stone walls, spires
and domes and chimneys! and you hear the dull roar of the multitudinous
traffic over the pavements. Beyond, the great landscape is cut in twain
by the river. Otherwise it seems an almost unbroken plain to the remote
southern horizon where slumber ranges of shadowy mountains. It is a
wonderful sight--that wide level with its variegated fields and
woodlands and its dappling of blue cloud shadows; and its charm is
probably fully as great today as when Cartier looked down on the scene
from this same spot.




VI

THE OTTAWA


Just above the Island of Montreal the brown waters of the Ottawa join
the clear green flood of the St. Lawrence, and for many miles the two
flow side by side with apparently no tendency to intermingle. The Ottawa
is itself a river of noble proportions, and from its junction with the
St. Lawrence for a long distance up is so broad that this portion of it
is called a lake--the Lake of the Two Mountains.

The first white person to go up the river was a young man from
Champlain's little colony in Quebec, who in 1610 accompanied a party of
Indians to their home near the headwaters and wintered with them. The
next year another young man, Nicolas de Vignau, did likewise and
returned at the end of a twelve-month with a tale of having found a
passage through to the northern seas; "for he was the most impudent liar
that has been seen for many a day," says Champlain. But this comment on
the adventurer's character was only made after Champlain had personally
tested the accuracy of his statements. At first his story was accepted
for truth and it was thought that the long-sought route to Asia had at
last been revealed. So, in 1613, Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence to
Montreal, and starting from there with five companions in two canoes he
set forth to explore the Ottawa. One of his party was an Indian, and
another was Nicolas de Vignau.

They advanced up the Lake of the Two Mountains, and kept on till the
rapids of Carillon checked their course. So dense and tangled was the
bordering forest that they had to trail the canoes along the bank with
cords, or push them by main force up the current. In the smoother water
above they met some canoes of friendly Indians. One of their number
agreed to go on with Champlain, while the most awkward of the Frenchmen
went down the river with them. Day after day the explorers paddled
steadily onward, and at length, a little beyond the present city of
Ottawa, they came in sight of the wild cataracts of Chaudire foaming
down the rocks and filling the region with their hoarse voice. On the
brink of the plunging torrent Champlain's two Indians took their stand,
and with a loud invocation threw tobacco into the stream, an offering
to the Manitou of the cataract. This was a customary ceremony here, and
was supposed to insure a safe voyage.

The party went on with much labor and scant food, and sometimes, as
Champlain affirmed, "plagued beyond all description by the mosquitoes."
One day they had to carry through a pine forest where a tornado had
passed, tearing up the trees and piling them one on another in a
confusion of roots, trunks and branches. At last they came to Muskrat
Lake, by the edge of which was an Indian settlement. Here was a rough
clearing where the trees had been burned; but many dead, blackened
trunks were still standing, and the ground was cumbered with stumps and
charred fragments. In spots, however, the soil had been feebly stirred
with hoes of wood or bone and a crop of maize started that was now about
four inches high.

When the Indians observed Champlain's canoes approaching, they ran from
their scattered bark huts to the shore in amazement at sight of the
white men, whom they thought must have fallen from the clouds. But they
welcomed the strangers hospitably and soon had a repast of fish ready
for them. Champlain asked for an escort to guide him to other Indian
settlements beyond, and his request was granted. At length, however,
his journey was brought to an end by the discovery that the Indians of
the region did not agree with Vignau about the country toward which
Champlain was directing his quest for the passage to the northern seas.
When Vignau was confronted with their assertions he broke down and
confessed himself to be an imposter. The savages counselled that he
should be killed at once for his deceit, and added: "Give him to us, and
we promise you he shall never lie again."

But Champlain, who now started homeward, allowed him to return with the
rest. The Frenchmen were attended by a fleet of forty canoes bound for
Montreal; and on the way, while encamped for the night on an island, one
of the Indians was visited with a nightmare. He leaped up screaming that
someone was killing him. Instantly all his companions were on their
feet, and, fancying an attack was being made by the Iroquois stampeded
and ran splashing into the water. They waded out till it was almost up
to their necks. Meanwhile the Frenchmen had seized their guns and were
looking for the enemy that had caused the panic. Their search was
fruitless, and they turned their attention to reassuring the warriors
in the stream, who presently waded ashore.

When the party reached Montreal Champlain found there a number of his
men. They had been hunting and revelling in a sylvan abundance while he,
with much worry and fatigue, had been making his unavailing search for a
passage to China. Nevertheless, the difficulties and disappointments of
this trip did not deter him from going on another expedition up the
Ottawa two years later. From the headwaters of the river he pushed on
even as far as Lake Huron and spent the winter among the Indians. Not
until the middle of July did he get back to Quebec, and as the Indians
had reported that he was dead, he was welcomed as one risen from the
grave.

From the earliest advent of the white man, and the beginning of barter
for the furs of the savages, the Ottawa was the main artery of Canada
for this trade. It was therefore the constant effort of the Iroquois,
who were enemies of the Northwestern tribes and usually antagonized the
French as well, to close this thoroughfare so completely that the annual
supply of beaver skins would be prevented from passing. They spent the
latter part of each winter hunting in the forests between the Ottawa
and the upper St. Lawrence, and, when the ice broke up, moved in large
bands to the banks of the former and lay in ambush at the carries around
the Chaudire Falls and the various rapids. Many conflicts occurred
between them and the French, to whom the fur trade was almost the only
source of wealth. The most notable of these combats was one that took
place in 1660. Indeed, the courageous self-sacrifice of the whites
engaged is almost without parallel in the bloody annals of Indian
warfare.

It became known in the spring of the year mentioned that unusual numbers
of Iroquois had wintered among the forests of the Ottawa. Evidently some
mischief was on foot and the conclusion was reached that the settlements
on the St. Lawrence were in serious danger. To ward off the impending
assault a young officer named Daulac, commandant of the garrison at
Montreal, asked the governor of the town for leave to lead a party of
volunteers against the enemy. He proposed to waylay them as they
descended the river, and fight, no matter what the disparity of force.
After some hesitation the governor gave his consent.

Daulac was a person of good family who had come from France three years
before at the age of twenty-two. It was said that he had been involved
in some affair that had brought disgrace on him, and he was now anxious
to win a new reputation by a noteworthy exploit. He invited other young
men of Montreal to join in the enterprise, and sixteen responded. They
bound themselves to accept no quarter and made their wills; and as they
knelt to receive the sacrament for the last time before the altar in the
chapel of the Hotel Dieu, the population of the town gazed on them with
enthusiasm. Some of the older men begged them to wait till after the
spring sowing that they might join in the expedition. But Daulac
refused. He wanted both the glory and the danger. The oldest of his
comrades was thirty-one, the youngest twenty-one.

[Illustration: _Looking across the Ottawa toward the parliament
buildings_]

After a solemn farewell they embarked in several canoes, well supplied
with arms and ammunition, and presently entered the mouth of the Ottawa
and went up that broad expansion of the river known as the Lake of the
Two Mountains. The party had not been long gone from Montreal when some
friendly Hurons and Algonquins who stopped there learned of the
expedition, and the wish seized them to share the adventure. They asked
the governor for a letter recommending them to Daulac, and he complied
so far as to write telling Daulac to accept or reject the reinforcement
as he saw fit. So the Indians embarked and paddled in pursuit of the
seventeen Frenchmen.

Daulac and his companions had meanwhile passed with difficulty the swift
current at Carillon, and about May first they reached the more
formidable rapid called the Long Sault. The tumult of waters, foaming
among ledges and boulders barred the way, and it was decided to fight
the enemy at this place. Just below the rapid, where the forest sloped
gently to the shore, stood a palisaded fort, the work of an Algonquin
war-party, the previous autumn. It was among the bushes and stumps of
the rough clearing made in constructing it, and consisted simply of a
circle of small tree-trunks, that was already ruinous. But the Frenchmen
took possession of it, and made their fires and slung their kettles on
the neighboring shore. Shortly afterward they were joined by the
friendly Hurons and Algonquins, to whom Daulac apparently made no
objection, and they all bivouacked together.

In a day or two their scouts brought word that five Iroquois in two
canoes were coming down the rapids. Daulac had time to place some of his
men in ambush at the point where it seemed likely the enemy would land.
The canoes approached and were greeted by a volley which was fired in
too great excitement to kill all the warriors. One or more escaped into
the forest and hurried back to relate their mischance to the rest of the
party, two hundred in number, on the river above. Soon the entire fleet
of canoes came coursing down the rapids, filled with warriors eager for
revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to the fort. They repulsed
a desultory attack, and the Iroquois fell to building a rude
fortification that would serve them as a shelter in the adjacent forest.

This gave the French a chance to strengthen their own defences. They
planted a row of stakes within their palisade, leaving a space between
which they filled with earth and stones to the height of a man. About
twenty loopholes were made, at each of which three men were stationed.
But before this undertaking was finished the Iroquois, who had broken to
pieces the birch canoes of the besieged and set fire to the bark rushed
up to pile the blazing mass against the palisade. The brisk and steady
shots from the fort, however, drove them back. For a second time they
made a dash at the fort and again were forced to retreat, leaving many
of their number wounded on the ground. Among the fallen was the
principal chief of the Senecas. Some of the French ran out, hacked off
his head and stuck it on the palisade, while the Iroquois howled in
helpless fury. Another attack quickly followed and was repulsed.

This discouraged the enemy and they dispatched a canoe to call to their
aid five hundred warriors who were mustered at the mouth of the
Richelieu. The two parties had intended to unite in an attack on
Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec. It was exasperating to have the grand
enterprise halted by a mere handful of men in a forest fort that was no
better than a cattle-pen. For five days and nights the assailants, from
behind trees and logs, beset the fort. The allies fought and prayed by
turns. Lack of water was their worst handicap. Some of them made a sally
to the river and filled such small vessels as they had. Finally they dug
a hole in the fort and were rewarded by a little muddy water oozing
through the clay.

The situation had grown so harassing that most of the Indian allies
deserted to the enemy. Only five remained firm. On the fifth day an
uproar of unearthly yells mingled with a clattering salute of musketry,
proclaimed the arrival of reinforcements. The five hundred had come from
the Richelieu. The crowd of warriors mustered for an attack and
cautiously advanced leaping from side to side and firing as they came
on. But from every loophole of the fort darted a tongue of fire. The
defenders not only had muskets, but heavy musketoons which scattered
scraps of lead and iron among the savages, often maiming several at one
discharge. The Iroquois fell back discomfited. Three days more wore away
in a series of futile attacks. Some of the assailants were now for going
home, but the majority were bent on revenge, and it was resolved to make
a carefully planned general assault. Large and heavy shields four or
five feet high were made by lashing together three split logs, and with
these before them the leaders advanced followed by the motley throng of
other warriors. This time they reached the palisade, and, crouching
below the range of the bullets, hewed furiously with their hatchets to
cut a way through.

[Illustration: _The River Rideau near Ottawa_]

Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with powder and plugged the muzzle.
He inserted a fuse, lit it and attempted to throw the weapon over the
barrier to burst like a grenade among the crowd of savages; but the
heavy gun struck the ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back and
exploded. By this unfortunate accident several of the defenders were
killed and disabled, and others were nearly blinded. In the confusion
that followed, the Iroquois got possession of the loopholes, and fired
through onto those within. A moment later a breech had been torn in the
palisade. Daulac and his surviving followers sprang to defend it.
Another breech was made, and then another. Daulac was struck dead, but
there were still a few left to keep up the fight. With swords, hatchets
and knives they struck and stabbed, till the Iroquois, despairing of
taking them alive fired volley after volley and the last one fell. Then
there was a burst of triumphant yells.

The victors examined the bodies and found four Frenchmen still
breathing. Life was only just flickering in three of them, and the
Iroquois lost no time in burning them before they expired. The fourth
seemed likely to survive, and they reserved him for future torments.
Next they turned their attention to the Indian deserters from the fort.
They had promised to treat them as friends, but now they burned several
of them, and carried off the rest as captives to meet a similar fate in
the Iroquois villages. Five of the number escaped, and it was from them,
aided by admissions made long afterward by the Iroquois themselves that
all knowledge of Daulac's glorious disaster was derived. This martyr
foray was the salvation of the colony. For the time being the hostile
savages had had fighting enough.

Settlers were slow to establish themselves in the wilderness along the
Ottawa, and for nearly two hundred years the only visitors were trappers
and traders. At length, in 1796, a Massachusetts man built his cabin on
the shore where the city of Hull now stands, just across the river from
Ottawa, the capital of the dominion. But he and a few others who later
joined him hardly made a noticeable impression on the wilderness until
1826. Then a government commission arrived to investigate possible
routes and the expense of building a canal from the Ottawa to Lake
Ontario. The desirability of such a canal was urged by the Duke of
Wellington, who, admonished by the War of 1812, thought it best to have
a route from western Canada to Montreal independent of the St. Lawrence.
This canal presently became a reality, and it winds through a very
attractive section of country. Colonel By, one of the government
representatives interested in the canal, started a village where the
canal entered the Ottawa. This village under the name of Bytown had a
population of one thousand within a few months. Twenty years later there
were six thousand, and in 1855 the place became a city and changed its
name to Ottawa.

For situation no Canadian city except Quebec can rival it. The whole
river front presents a succession of bold promontories, some of them
rising perpendicularly from the water's edge, clothed with pines and
cedars, and separated from each other by small bays.

In 1827, the same year that the canal was begun, work was started on a
suspension bridge to cross the river. The initial connection with the
opposite bank was obtained by firing a rope from a brass cannon. The
first span constructed gave way and fell into the stream. While the
second bridge was being built the chain cables broke, precipitating
workmen and tools into the channel, and three of the men were drowned.
Next a wooden bridge was attempted. It was nearly completed when a gale
overturned it and it was carried down the stream. Still another bridge
was presently started, and this time the fates were propitious. At
least, it was completed; but twelve years later it followed in the wake
of its predecessors by collapsing into the river. Communication was
thereafter by ferry until 1843, when the stream was again bridged.

[Illustration: _A field on the borders of a village_]

It was to a large degree a matter of chance that this particular place
became the capital of the dominion. At one time Quebec was the capital,
at another Toronto. In 1840 the British governor-general effected a
union of Upper and Lower Canada and made Kingston the capital. Later
Montreal took a turn at being the seat of government, and while it was
enjoying this distinction the dominion parliament voted money to pay
damages to those who had property destroyed in the "patriots'"
rebellion. This measure was extremely unpopular with many of the people,
and when the governor, Lord Elgin, signed the bill, he was mobbed in the
streets. The rioters then went to the House of Parliament, turned out
the members, and burned the building to the ground. That settled
Montreal's fate as the capital of Canada. Queen Victoria was asked to
choose a new site which should be the permanent capital, and in 1857 she
selected Ottawa. The place was at that time a moderate-sized lumber
town, but the magnificence of its site weighed strongly in its favor,
and its position in relation to the population of the dominion was also
favorable.

The center of interest in Ottawa is the parliament buildings. These are
of imposing size and have not a little dignity and beauty in their
architecture. Their attractiveness is much increased by their position
on the most commanding bluff overlooking the river and a great sweep of
country roundabout. The lumber interests of Ottawa and the city of Hull
just across the river are still of great importance, and there are many
immense sawmills along the waterside.

Hull, in the early days, was merely a landing place to portage around
the neighboring Chaudire Falls and later was a trading post, but is now
a great milling and industrial center. It has been devastated by several
serious fires, and the conflagration of April, 1900, nearly wiped it
out. "The fire was begun by some woman burning a rubbish heap," a
citizen informed me. "An awful wind was blowing that day and the fire
got away. It swept everything before it, and great sticks of blazing
timber were carried clear across the river and started a fire in Ottawa.
There was such a heat it was impossible to get at all near to fight it,
and it spread so fast the firemen sometimes had to run to save
themselves, and they even had to leave their hose behind. They were
driven back so hastily they couldn't turn the water off at the hydrants,
and by and by the pressure was lost and they were about helpless. They
couldn't do a thing in front of the fire and simply worked to prevent
its spreading sidewise. It cleared a strip straight through the town and
only stopped when there was nothing more to burn. I knew a carpenter who
lost his life in the fire. He had got out of harm's way when he thought
of his tools. He couldn't bear to lose them and he ran back to the shop
intending to bring them away. That was the last ever seen of him."

The burnt district was all built up within a few years and every trace
of the ten million dollar loss effaced. This recuperative power and the
general prosperity of the region is largely due to the abundance of
water power. Canada is noted for the number of falls on its streams; but
perhaps no district is richer in "white coal," as this power has been
called, than the country around Ottawa. Inside the city limits alone
there is one hundred thousand horse power, and within a radius of ten
miles as much more. No wonder that the future of the region should be
roseate with promise!




VII

THE RICHELIEU AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN


The Lachine Rapids are the last escapade of the St. Lawrence, and
thenceforth it moves oceanward with serene majesty. Half way to Quebec
the stream expands into Lake St. Peter, and beyond that point, inhaling
and exhaling its mighty tides, it is much like an arm of the sea, and
its waters presently become as salt as those of the ocean into which it
flows.

Lake St. Peter was named by Champlain, who happened to arrive there on
the day that belonged to this particular saint. The method he adopted in
conferring a name on Lake St. Peter is typical of the habit of the
devout early French explorers, and the saints are abundantly in evidence
in the nomenclature of the country.

The chief town bordering the Lake is Sorel. I arrived there on the
steamer late one Saturday night and went up into the town to find a
hotel. At the first place where I stopped I could get no attention from
the landlord. He was too busy at his bar serving the crowd of drinkers
who are always out in force on the final evening of the week. At the
next place I tried I secured a room, though here, also, the bar claimed
the landlord's time to such a degree that he seemed to regret even the
hastiest formalities, and quickly returned to his thirsty customers.

I recall with somewhat similar interest the way in which I left Sorel.
My wish was to go on by train from the other side of the river, and I
hired a motor boat to take me across. It was a seven mile trip. Two men
went to run the boat, and three more to keep the others company, and
they carried along a stout bottle of whiskey from which they imbibed at
intervals until I began to fear the liquor might impair their
seamanship. It was a relief when the journey ended and I was once more
safely on shore.

Two historic tributaries join the great river at Lake St. Peter. These
are the Richelieu and the St. Francis. Both were important pathways
between the debatable valley of the St. Lawrence and the English
settlements that neighbored the Atlantic to the east and south. Up and
down these thoroughfares and their lakes passed and repassed the rival
races of ancient Canada and New England. The Richelieu, in particular,
was a great main war trail. By following it up to Lake Champlain, and
continuing thence by Otter Creek and Black River easy entrance was
gained to New England. Or, turning westerly at the head of Lake
Champlain, and passing through Lake George, only a short portage was
needed to reach the Hudson.

The first explorer of the river was Champlain. Near the end of June,
1609, with eleven other white men in a small shallop, and accompanied by
a host of Indians in canoes, he left the newly-established town at the
foot of Quebec's great rock and went up the St. Lawrence. At the mouth
of the Richelieu, where is now the town of Sorel, the warriors encamped
for two days hunting, fishing and taking their ease. They quarrelled,
also, and as a result three-fourths of them took to their canoes and
paddled off home. The rest pursued their course up the placid stream
with its endless walls of verdure until it broadened out into the
tranquil basin of Chambly. Above were rapids, and the shallop could go
no farther. Champlain ordered it to return to Quebec with all but two of
his white companions, while he went on to see the "great lake, full of
fair islands and bordered with fine countries," of which his allies had
told him. The Indians lifted their canoes from the water and bore them
on their shoulders half a league through the damps and shadows of the
woods to the smoother stream above. There were twenty-four canoes in all
and sixty warriors. They observed a certain system in their advance.
Some went ahead of the main body as a vanguard, while others were in the
forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of the
whole. To be sure, they had a provision of parched maize pounded into
meal, but they saved this for use when they should be so close to the
enemy that hunting would be impossible. Late in the day the party would
land, draw up their canoes and range them closely side by side. Rude
bark-covered sheds were then made, dry wood was gathered for the fires,
and trees were felled with which to form a defensive barricade on the
landward side of the canoes and shelters.

In the course of time Champlain came to the lake that now bears his name
and went on amid the islands and broad reaches of water to the more open
portion whence he could see the forest ridges of the Green Mountains far
off in the east, while on the western horizon loomed the Adirondacks.

The vicinity was becoming dangerous, and the party now moved only at
night. All day they kept close in their forest camp, sleeping or
lounging. About ten o'clock in the evening of July 29th, they approached
a projecting point of land, which was probably the promontory since
famous under its resounding Iroquois name of Ticonderoga. The word means
the "meeting of the waters" and refers to the junction, close by, of
Lake Champlain with the outlet of Lake George. As the allies were
paddling softly along in the gloom they descried on ahead a flotilla of
Iroquois canoes, and both parties began to shriek their war-cries.

The Iroquois, who were near the shore, landed, and, making night hideous
with their clamors, began to hack down the trees and erect a barricade.
The allies remained on the lake, just beyond bowshot of the enemy, their
canoes made fast together by poles lashed across. All night they danced
with as much vigor as their situation and the frailty of their vessels
would allow, and yelled defiance and abuse at the foe. Champlain and his
two followers decided to keep the enemy in ignorance of their presence
until later, and toward morning each man lay down out of sight in the
bottom of the canoe he was in.

[Illustration: _Old Fort Chambly_]

When the dusky woodland shadows had been dispelled by the increasing
light, the allies landed at some distance from the Iroquois. After a
time, the latter filed forth from their barricade, two hundred strong,
and advanced through the forest toward the invaders. Among them, made
conspicuous by tall plumes, were three chiefs. Champlain now stepped out
in front of the ranks of the allies, and the Iroquois stared in mute
amazement at the warlike apparition. He wore the doublet and long hose
then in vogue, and he had buckled on a breastplate and protected his
head with a plumed casque. At his side hung his sword, and in his hand
he carried his arquebuse, a short gun, something like the modern
carbine.

As soon as the Iroquois had a little recovered from their astonishment
they made ready to shoot their arrows. Then Champlain leveled his
arquebuse which he had loaded with four balls, aimed at the leaders and
fired. Two of the chiefs fell dead, and the other was wounded.
Immediately Champlain's Indian allies "set up such a yelling that one
could not have heard a thunder-clap," and the arrows flew thick from
both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished and frightened to see
their men killed so suddenly and mysteriously, and when one of the
other white men fired a shot, they turned and fled. The allies dashed
after them, and killed or captured many of the fugitives who abandoned
camp, canoes and provisions, and flung down many of their weapons. That
night, much to the horror of Champlain, the victors tortured and burned
at the stake one of their prisoners.

It was not safe to linger there in the enemy's country, and the allies
promptly retreated. Three or four days later they were at the mouth of
the Richelieu, and the whites went on down the St. Lawrence to Quebec,
while the Indians with their prisoners went in the other direction
toward the Ottawa. This single victory satisfied the savages for the
time being.

Champlain had by their aid explored an entirely new region and had the
promise of their future help in pushing into the unknown to the west and
north. In return for these favors he must continue to assist them
against the Iroquois. So the next year another foray was planned into
the enemy's country. The Montagnais who inhabited the Saguenay region
went with Champlain and a number of other whites up the river and
established themselves on an island at the mouth of the Richelieu to
await the arrival of the confederates, the Hurons and the Ottawa
Algonquins. Here they were on the nineteenth of June when a canoe was
seen approaching in frantic haste. As soon as it was near enough for the
Indians in the canoe to make themselves heard one of them ceased
paddling and shouted that the Algonquins were in the forest, a league
distant fighting with a hundred Iroquois warriors who were protected by
a barricade of trees.

At once the savages on the island seized their weapons and ran
screeching to their canoes. Off they went accompanied by Champlain and
four of his men. When the canoes reached a spot opposite the place of
conflict the warriors landed and ran into the woods. It was beyond the
power of the Frenchmen to keep pace with the light-limbed rabble, who
quickly disappeared, and the white men found themselves deserted in the
midst of a swamp. The day was sultry, and Champlain says: "The
mosquitoes were so thick that we could scarcely draw breath." But they
pushed on through mud and water and retarding vines and underbrush until
they heard the yells of the combatants. Presently they came to a partial
clearing made by the Iroquois axemen. On the borders of it gathered the
allies. They had been repulsed and were afraid to renew the assault on
the circular breastwork of trunks, boughs and matted foliage that the
Iroquois had erected. The Frenchmen began firing, and when these
mysterious and terrible assailants, clad in steel and armed with
thunderbolts ran up to the barricade and shot death among those within,
the defenders were overcome with terror. At every report they fell flat
on the ground, and the allies quickly tore an opening in the barricade
and the fight was soon over. All the band were killed and scalped except
fifteen who were made prisoners and kept to be carried to the Indian
villages where they would be put to death by the women and girls with
all the tortures that their savage ingenuity could invent. To celebrate
the victory the body of one of the slain Iroquois was quartered and
eaten, and there was much dancing and singing. Then the canoes were
loaded, camp was broken and the victors set out triumphantly for home.

[Illustration: _A Lake Champlain ferryboat_]

As time went on and the numbers of the Europeans in the New World
increased, the rival interests of the French and English made the Lake
Champlain thoroughfare of vital importance. The advantage of gaining
full mastery of it early became evident, and it was not long left
without the protection of armed garrisons. In 1664 Fort Chambly, named
after its builder, was erected at the foot of the rapids on the
Richelieu, only a thirteen-mile portage from the St. Lawrence near
Montreal. It was over this ancient portage that the first Canadian
railway, begun in 1832, was constructed.

At Chambly there is still a carefully preserved ruin of a stone fortress
built in those long-gone times. Its outer walls are for the most part
sturdily complete, and it stands in apparent guard over the waterway, at
the foot of the rapids, just as of yore. An interesting touch of savage
romance was imparted to the place, when I was there, by my finding
within a few rods of the fort the stone head of a tomahawk. Who knows
what barbaric deeds had been done with that sharpened bit of stone?

In 1731 the French began to intrench themselves on the western side of
Lake Champlain at what they called Scalp Point, but which was known as
Crown Point by the English. Here, toward its southern end, the lake
suddenly contracts to the proportions of a river, so that a few cannon
would stop the passage. Fort Frederic, as this advanced post of France
was named, was a constant menace to New York and New England.

The English, on their part prepared a string of strongholds extending
from Fort William Henry, at the southern end of Lake George, well down
toward Albany. Thus did the two jealous powers guard the "Grand Pass."

During the fighting on the shores of Lake George in 1755 the French made
intrenchments at Ticonderoga, or Carillon, as they called it, and they
busied themselves all the next winter in building a fort on the
promontory. This became a hornet's nest from which swarms of savages
poured out to infest the highways and byways of the wilderness. The
English headquarters were at Fort William Henry and rangers from there
were constantly harassing the French. The most notable of these rangers
was Major Robert Rogers, and nothing could surpass his adventurous
hardihood. In February he and some of his men climbed a hill near Crown
Point and made a plan of the works. Then they lay in ambush by an
adjacent road and captured a prisoner, and before retreating burned
several houses and barns and killed fifty cattle. Shortly afterward they
went again to Crown Point, burned more houses and barns and
reconnoitred Ticonderoga on the way back. Such excursions were repeated
throughout the spring and summer.

But the first notable clash at Ticonderoga between the opposing nations
occurred in 1758. The English had assembled at Fort William Henry more
than fifteen thousand men, the largest army that had ever been collected
in North America. General Abercrombie was the English commander, an
elderly man raised to his place by political influence; but the actual
direction of the army devolved on Brigadier Lord Howe. The latter was in
his thirty-fourth year, and he was full of energy and activity and had
the confidence of the army from general to drummer-boy. He had studied
the art of forest warfare by joining Rogers and his rangers in their
scouting parties, and sharing all their hardships. By his orders
officers and men threw off all useless incumbrances, cut their hair
close, wore leather leggings to protect them from briers, and carried
meal in their knapsacks, which they could at any time cook for
themselves. In all such things he himself set the example.

On the fifth of July the whole army embarked in bateaux and canoes on
Lake George and the next day landed at its north end. A detachment
under Rogers plunged into the woods to lead the way toward Ticonderoga,
but presently came unexpectedly on a party of French who greeted them
with a volley of musketry. Among those who dropped dead was Lord Howe.
This little skirmish wrecked the fortunes of the army, which blundered
in nearly every move afterward. When it was sent forward to drive the
French from their works by a direct assault it was attempting the
impossible. A ridge extended across the plateau northwest of the
fortress, and Montcalm, the French commander, had fortified it by
felling trees and making a zigzag parapet. In front of the parapet the
ground was covered with a tangle of boughs, many of which had sharpened
points projecting away from the line of defence to embarrass an
approaching foe. On the morning of the eighth the English infantry
pressed forward with orders to carry the works by a bayonet charge. But
as soon as they got among the bristling boughs the charge was broken and
from the zigzag bastions ahead of them came a storm of grape and musket
shot to which they could make no effectual reply. They struggled in vain
to force their way through the obstructions, and at length retreated.
During the afternoon they made no less than six successive assaults
and lost two thousand in killed and wounded. Montcalm, with his coat
off, for the day was hot, directed the defence, moving to any part of
the line where the danger for the moment seemed greatest.

[Illustration: _Fort Frederic at Crown Point_]

It might still have been possible for Abercrombie to adopt some other
plan of action that would have been successful, but his spirit and that
of his army was broken. The entire force withdrew in a panic, and when
the French reconnoitred as far as Lake George the next morning they
found several hundred barrels of provisions and a large quantity of
baggage that had been left behind; and in a marshy place that the
defeated troops had crossed were numerous shoes, which had stuck in the
mud, and which they had not stopped to recover.

But while the French were victorious at Ticonderoga they suffered
reverses elsewhere, and the next year they felt obliged to relinquish
Lake Champlain. When, therefore, an English army again arrived in the
vicinity of Ticonderoga and began operations for capturing the
stronghold, the garrison slipped away one night in their boats. Shortly
afterward a broad fierce glare illumined the promontory and there was a
stupendous crash as a mine beneath the fort exploded. But only one
bastion had been hurled skyward, and the English took possession and set
about repairing the damaged works. Before they were ready to move
against Crown Point, that also had been deserted.

With the outbreak of the American Revolution Ticonderoga and Crown Point
once more became objects of importance. They commanded the northern
approaches to the Hudson River, the strategic center of the whole
country. Besides, they contained a vast quantity of military stores that
would be a great aid to the colonial recruits. Two expeditions prepared
to march against them, one consisting of men from the western hills of
Massachusetts under Benedict Arnold, and the other of "Green Mountain
Boys" of Vermont under Ethan Allen. The two parties united, with Allen
as leader. They reached the east side of the lake on the night of May 9,
1775; but not nearly enough rowboats could be found to convey the men
across. Delay would be fatal, and so with only eighty-three followers
Allen and Arnold crossed to the other side and at daybreak climbed the
ridge to the fortress. The little garrison was completely surprised and
surrendered without a struggle. At the same time Crown Point
surrendered to another detachment of the colonials.

Ticonderoga was carefully strengthened until it was believed to be
impregnable; but a neighboring point which commanded the whole position
was neglected. Less than a mile to the south the narrow mountain range
between Lakes Champlain and George ends abruptly in a bold crag that
rises six hundred feet above the blue waters. The Americans were aware
that a hostile battery planted on this eminence would render their
stronghold untenable, but they believed it was impossible to get siege
guns up the steep ascent. However, when Burgoyne's army, in midsummer,
1777, came from Canada to conquer the Hudson Valley, and arrived in the
vicinity of Ticonderoga they at once investigated this mountain. A
narrow defile was found screened from the view of the fort, and here
relays of men labored breaking out a pathway and dragging up cannon.
Great was the astonishment of the garrison on the morning of July fifth
to see red coats swarming on the summit of the crag, which the British,
rejoicing in their exploit, named Mount Defiance. In another day the
cannon on the height would be ready for work. Ticonderoga was no longer
tenable, and that night the garrison withdrew across the lake.

In later years the fort was neglected and became a ruin. Roundabout was
a great pasture where cows and horses grazed, and the old embankments
were much overrun with clumps of thorn trees and cedars and thickets of
poplars. But now the ancient fortress is being restored by a private
individual, not for warlike purposes but as a matter of historic
interest.

It is a fascinating place to visit, and so is old Fort Frederic. The
latter is five miles north of the village of Crown Point, and one autumn
day I went thither on foot. The weather was not very propitious. There
were low-hanging gray clouds that enveloped the hills in filmy mists and
at intervals sent down a foggy precipitation. The grass was loaded with
waterdrops, the trees kept up a sober dripping, and the walking was
decidedly muddy. The road rambled along amid pleasant farming country
with the lake often in view. When I reached the fort, the western shore
turned at an abrupt angle and the waterway which hitherto had been so
narrow as to resemble a sluggish river reached away northward in an
expanse of considerable breadth. Right at this angle were the mighty
earthworks of the grim old fort. They are still largely intact, and
behind them are the ruins of the stone barracks and other buildings.
Here and there grow scattered trees to relieve the bareness of the
grass-grown embrasures, and up the road just beyond the earthworks that
are so suggestive of conflict and untimely death is a peaceful farm with
its snug dwelling and broad-roofed barns.

Probably the most widely famous natural attraction in the Lake Champlain
region, aside from the lake itself, is the Ausable Chasm. To reach it
the traveller leaves the main line of railway at Port Kent and takes a
branch line that carries him three miles back inland. Here is a green
valley with a little river entering a narrow rift in the big hill that
lies between it and Lake Champlain. When I descended by the steep zigzag
stairs into the chasm and looked up the stream I had in full sight a
beautiful white cascade at the entrance to the defile, and near at hand
were lesser falls and tumultuous rapids. I went on down the gorge,
sometimes on narrow shelves of rock well up above the water, sometimes
on broader masses down by the stream. There was a regular route
carefully prepared, with stairs at steep places, and protecting iron
railings where the path clung high along the side of the cliff. It was a
crooked way, now up, now down, and with many twists and turns. The
heights, far above, were crowned with ragged trees, and down below was
the gloomy channel and the sinister attenuated stream seemingly black as
ink, and streaked with snowy foam. Once in a while there was a rift in
the frowning walls, and a damp wooded ravine slanted steeply down to the
river, and in the face of the cliffs were numerous small caves and
niches. All these features, as well as various oddly fashioned
projections, had been duly named and labeled, and, in consequence the
chasm has a grotesque museum-like aspect which I did not wholly
appreciate. But it is nevertheless a grim and stupendous gorge, and is
one of the most impressive specimens of nature's carving east of the
Rocky Mountains. After a mile of walking the path comes to an end, and
those who choose can continue the journey somewhat farther by boat--a
rather exciting voyage if the water is high.

Long ago a highway crossed the chasm by a bridge that spanned one of its
deepest portions, and the story is told of a doctor who one day crossed
the bridge on horseback to visit a patient in the region. He was
detained until late at night. Meanwhile some workmen had started to
repair the bridge, and they took up all the planking. When the doctor
reached home he was asked by what road he came. He replied that he had
crossed the bridge as usual, and as the night was clouded and dark he
had not observed but that it was in its ordinary condition. That he had
actually crossed it did not seem possible, yet when the bridge was
examined the marks of a horse's hoofs were found on one of the
stringers, and it was evident he had had an almost miraculous escape
from a plunge to death in the wild chasm.

On my return to Port Kent I found the wind blowing briskly, and the blue
waters of the lake were lashing the shore in white-capped breakers. It
here reaches its greatest breadth, but as the day was clear I could see
the opposite shore distinctly and on the horizon were several mountain
ranges that seemed imposingly high in the azure distance.




VIII

THE HISTORIC ST. FRANCIS


In pioneer times the importance of the St. Francis River as a highway
between the St. Lawrence and the country to the south was second only to
that of the Richelieu. From the valleys of the Connecticut and of the
Merrimac, and thence through the gateway of the wilderness lakes and
down the St. Francis passed more English captives to Canada than on all
other routes combined. This tributary of the St. Lawrence has known the
wail of human distress at every turn in its winding course, and has
witnessed many a savage tragedy.

[Illustration: _The waterfalls at the entrance to the Ausable Chasm_]

Near its mouth was an Indian village with the same name as the stream,
the inhabitants of which were nominally Christians, though they remained
thorough savages in dress, habits and character, and were the scourge of
the New England borders. In September, 1759, Major Robert Rogers, who
had won much fame as a forest ranger, was sent against this village. He
and his men went in bateaux up Lake Champlain to its north end, where
they hid the boats and left two friendly Indians on guard. The party
then began its march, but on the second day out the two Indians overtook
Rogers with the startling intelligence that about four hundred French
had found the bateaux and that half the force was on his trail in hot
pursuit. Other parties would doubtless soon be warned of his presence in
the northern wilderness, and his danger was serious.

He determined, however, to outmarch his pursuers and to go on and strike
St. Francis before it could receive help. That done, he would return by
way of Lake Memphramagog and the Connecticut River. For nine days more
he toiled northward, much of the time through dense spruce swamps with
no dry resting-place at night. Then he drew near to his destination, and
one day, toward evening, Rogers climbed a tree and descried the town
three miles distant.

Accidents, fatigue and illness had reduced his followers to one hundred
and forty-two, but he was not dismayed. Accompanied by two officers he
went to reconnoitre the place, and on its borders left his companions
and entered the village disguised in Indian garments. He found the
savages yelling and singing in the full enjoyment of a grand dance.
After a satisfactory survey he rejoined his party, and at three o'clock
in the morning he and his men burst in on the town. Many of the warriors
were absent, and the rest were asleep. Some were killed in their beds,
and others were shot down while trying to escape. In all, fully two
hundred of them perished. The women and children were allowed to get
away, excepting two boys and three girls who were carried off prisoners.
Hundreds of English scalps were dangling from poles over the doors of
the houses, and five English captives were found in the place. The town
was hastily pillaged and set on fire, and the retreat began. Until the
rangers reached Lake Memphramagog they subsisted on corn from the Indian
town. Then the supply failed, and they separated into small parties, the
better to sustain life by hunting. The enemy was now close behind, and
twenty or more of the rangers were killed or captured. After much
suffering the rest reached the Connecticut River, and eventually the
half-starved remnants of the expedition were welcomed in the outlying
settlements. Thus ended one of the most daring wilderness forays on
record.

The headwaters of the St. Francis are a tangle of minor streams, the
most important one being the outlet for Lakes Magog and Memphramagog.
The latter lake, which is the larger of the two, is an immense trough
extending north and south across the border line between Vermont and
Canada. Its western shore is bold and striking, being skirted by a
detachment of the Green Mountains, the main range of which can be seen
careering along the horizon far in the southwest. To the east and north,
however, the country is flat and monotonous.

Not far from the junction of the waters of this lake with those of the
St. Francis stands Sherbrooke, the city of fairs, whose tapering spires
on the neighboring hillslopes are visible for miles around. The fairs
which have given it such wide fame are an annual autumn institution.
They begin on Monday and last five days. Visitors journey hundreds of
miles to enjoy the occasion. It is an all-round show, contrived to suit
both the agricultural and the sporting elements. For the delectation of
the former there are farm exhibits in endless variety. I suppose the
pleasure-seekers from a distance are also to some degree interested in
the farm products, and they enjoy the stimulus of the crowd and the
individuality of the rustics who have flocked in from the country, but
they are present chiefly for the racing and betting.

The town is only a little beyond the American borders, yet it is in most
respects typically Canadian. Two-thirds of the people are French, and
the dividing line between them and the English is rather sharply drawn.
Marriage between the races is rare, partly because as a class the French
represent the poor, and the English the well-to-do, but mainly because
the difference in religion of the two races is construed to be an
impassable barrier to matrimony. French is the language commonly heard
on the streets and in the stores and other public places. Much of the
instruction in the parochial schools that the Catholics so faithfully
attend is in their language, though the children are also obliged to
learn English. I wondered if the double burden in the matter of language
was not something of a handicap. It is of course not a peculiarity of
Sherbrooke, for a large portion of Canada is bi-lingual, and public
notices are usually printed in both French and English.

An American visitor is likely to consider Sherbrooke's churches one of
its most striking features. These are decidedly more prominent than are
the churches in places of similar population in the States. Our
much-divided Protestants of necessity lag far behind the Catholic
Canadians in the impressiveness of their houses of worship. The Canadian
parishes include a very large number of people, and the churches seem to
be their chief pride. Consequently, the buildings, in size and in the
loftiness of their spires, are apt to loom up prominently above all
their surroundings. The people in general--men, women and children--can
be depended on to be present regularly at Sunday mass, and when the
services end the streets are full of returning worshippers. A good many
of the men are smoking their pipes as they go plodding homeward. They
are inveterate tobacco users--these Canadians--and the boys, with sham
smartness, start to puff at pipes and cigarettes pitiably young.

On the pleasant Sunday in early autumn that I was in Sherbrooke,
although crowds attended church, these were far from including the
entire population. There were loiterers about the houses, and in boats
on the water, and I heard the gunshots of hunters rambling in the woods.
At the waterside a lad who was fishing told me how a sturgeon had been
caught near by a month before. As he described it, the fish was a
veritable young whale in size and strength. Indeed two men struggled
with it in vain until one of them waded in and jabbed the creature a few
times with his jack knife.

While we talked a boatload of boys got stranded out in mid-stream. They
splashed and swore, and each gave vigorous orders to the others; but
there they stuck hard and fast. My friend said they were on their way to
a wild little island which he pointed out, and where he said there were
bushels of butternuts to be had for the picking-up. Presently a
swarthy-faced woman came down to the shore and shouted directions which
finally proved effective. They got off, came to where the woman was, and
she stepped into the boat herself and rowed them to the island.

After mass the churchgoers also became pleasure-seekers, and each person
followed his inclination, and rested, or loafed, or amused himself in
some more strenuous way. A good many went to the saloons for drink.
Nominally the saloons were closed on Sunday, but I observed that the
wise knew how to gain entrance by a rap at a secluded door.

Early in the afternoon the students from a Catholic college filed along
the sidewalk past my hotel in a procession that seemed for a while
likely to prove endless. They were mostly from ten to fifteen years of
age, and in their long Prince Albert coats and flat-crowned caps looked
awkward and raw. They marched in twos in charge of black-gowned,
shovel-hatted priests, and I could not but think of them as
machine-educated and repressed, separated from the pleasures and warm
affection of home, and living lives pathetically narrow. On this
occasion they were going to a playground to spend the afternoon in
games. They certainly showed no evidence of frisky and joyous
anticipation, and I wondered if the games were not of a sober and
lugubrious character supposedly suitable to the day in the ideals of the
priestly educators.

Many of the humbler homes of the town were decidedly shabby, carelessly
placed, unsubstantial, and often only partially finished. Yet on a
Sunday, at least, you may see around these poor dwellings women and
children so daintily dressed that you are inclined to doubt that those
really are their homes. Apparently they are bound to have fine raiment
at all hazards, even if the house goes to pieces over their heads.

The children in a family are pretty sure to be numerous, though, as one
man explained, a good many die; and I judged from his tone that he
thought this a not altogether undesirable relief from a too heavy
burden. He said the people in Sherbrooke were too numerous for the
amount of work that was to be had, and when a man lost a job it took him
about three months to find another. So it was a common habit with the
young men to go to the United States to seek work. But after staying
long enough to accumulate a snug sum they were apt to return and buy a
little farm.

The St. Francis River is here rather broader than one can throw a stone
across, and alternates with swift shallows and smooth depths. The houses
and factories of the town along the shore are not very prepossessing,
but above and below is pleasant farming country close at hand. That the
river was sometimes a furious flood was evident from scars along the
banks, and I questioned a young fellow paddling about in a boat as to
whether the dwellers in those houses so close to the raging waters did
not sometimes furnish victims to the river.

[Illustration: _Near the head of tide-water above Three Rivers_]

"Yes" he replied, "there's one or two drowned every spring. They're
usually young ones playin' around the water, and they over-balance, and
in they go. I came near getting drowned myself once. I was quite a boy
at the time, but I hadn't learned to swim. Another fellow was with me.
He was used to being around the river and he wasn't a bit afraid of it.
He could stand on a log out in the current just the same as if he was on
dry land; and he was showing off what he could do. It looked so easy to
ride on a log that I tried it, but the thing went from under me and I
got plumped into the water. I couldn't grip it afterward because it kept
rolling over and over. I had gone down twice when the other fellow
pushed out in a leaky old boat to where I was and grabbed me."

On the banks were numerous piles of logs among the little houses. These
had come down in the floods and were much battered by ice and rocks with
which they had come in contact. Most of the logs had been sawed and
split enough so that the fragments could be easily handled. The bank
dwellers were sure of two or three floods a year, but these do not
furnish as bountiful a harvest of driftwood as formerly. The sawmills
allow less to escape them and more people live along shore to catch what
is afloat.

"I've seen the stream full of it, years ago," commented one man; "and
there's lots of it comes down yet--Oh, gosh, yes! The families on the
bank get all they can burn themselves and there are those who have a
surplus to sell."

Some of the floodwood can be captured from the shore, but the people do
not hesitate to go out into the swift current with their boats, drive a
hook into a log and row to land with it. Even the ice which accompanies
the spring flood does not deter them.

I chatted for a while with a shore dweller whose most conspicuous
garment was a long linen duster. He explained very intelligently the
characteristics of the river until a church bell began ringing. Then he
at once branched off into a strange religious medley to this effect:
"God is in jail or He ought to be; and this world is not run right. Most
anytime it may tip up and we'll all slide off the edge. When that
happens where will Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Bridget and Mary and
you and me be? I want you to tell me that."

His voice rose as he went on, his words came more rapidly, his eyes grew
wildly bright, and at frequent intervals he explosively appealed to me
to know if what he said was not so. But the man's philosophy was too
intricate for my capacity, and I embraced the first opportunity to
withdraw. One of his fellow-townsmen later informed me that I had been
talking with Billy Bush, and in explanation of his peculiarities said:
"A girl give him the cold shoulder when he was young, and he went
bughouse over it."




IX

QUEBEC'S EVENTFUL HISTORY


Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec, was only thirty-six years of
age, when, in 1603, he first voyaged up the St. Lawrence; but he was
already an experienced and skilful seaman and a practiced soldier. He
was a man of great activity, daring and enterprise, and at the same time
he was firm, honest and cheerful. To his patrons he was always faithful,
and to those under him he was just and considerate. On this first
voyage, with two little vessels, he went as far as Montreal, but
accomplished nothing more than to gain a knowledge of the river.

Five years later he again came sailing up the St. Lawrence, this time in
a single ship, and anchored off the rock of Quebec. The Indian village
of Stadacona had crowned the bluff in Cartier's time, but this had
disappeared. Champlain was prepared to attempt a permanent settlement,
and Quebec's commanding height appealed to him as an excellent site for
a fortified post. It was his hope that when the town was once started
and the position made secure, expeditions could start thence to explore
the waters of the interior and find a western route to China and India.
Moreover, the fur trade could be developed, and last, but not least, the
souls of the savages could be saved by giving them the Christian
religion.

Between the base of the cliff and the river was a gentle wooded slope, a
few rods wide, where the marketplace of the lower town now is.
Champlain's axemen felled the trees, shaped them into timbers and
erected three buildings for the shelter of the colony. These were
inclosed by a strong wooden wall behind which was a gallery loopholed
for musketry. A moat surrounded the whole, and two or three small cannon
were mounted on platforms to command the river. A garden was laid out on
the ground adjacent.

One morning, while Champlain was at work in this garden, his pilot
approached him with an anxious countenance and requested in a low voice
to speak with him in private. They retired into the neighboring woods
where the pilot informed his chief that a locksmith named Duval and
three accomplices had befooled or frightened nearly the whole company
into a plot to kill Champlain, either by strangling him in his bed, or
by raising a false alarm in the night and shooting him as he came out
from his quarters. They were dissatisfied with the labor of felling
trees and of preparing for cultivation ground that was so full of
stones, roots and stumps. So they proposed to win a rich reward by
delivering Quebec into the hands of a party of Basques that was at
Tadousac.

There were a few men on whom Champlain could still depend, and at ten
o'clock that night he had the four ringleaders seized. Most of the
colony was asleep, but Champlain had everyone roused and told them of
the discovery of the plot and of the arrest of Duval and his three
comrades. Pardon was then promised to the frightened gathering and they
were dismissed to their beds. The next day Duval's body swinging from a
gibbet, and his head displayed on a pike from the highest roof of the
buildings, food for birds, gave warning to any who might be inclined to
plot in the future.

On the lower river was a trading vessel commanded by a merchant named
Pontgrav. This had been sent out under the same auspices as the one
that brought over Champlain's colony, and in the autumn it carried back
to France a portion of the men at Quebec, leaving him with only
twenty-eight men to hold the place through the winter. A roving band of
Indians came and built huts near the fort and busied themselves catching
eels, which were a main reliance for sustaining their miserable lives in
the months of frost and snow. After this slimy harvest had been gathered
and smoked and dried, they turned it over to Champlain for safe-keeping
and went off to hunt beavers. It was midwinter when they came back, and
they then settled down to a life of idleness in their smoky birch-bark
cabins. Sometimes their dreams or chance noises in the night frightened
them into the belief that a war party of their enemies was making a
descent on them, and they would go flocking in a body to beg admission
into the fort. Champlain allowed the women and children to enter the
yard and stay till morning, but he feared treachery if he gave the men
the same liberty, and they stood and shivered in the darkness outside.

On one occasion a group of wretched savages appeared on the farther bank
of the St. Lawrence evidently desirous to cross. The river was full of
drifting ice, but the Indians had canoes and they embarked. Midway the
ice caught and destroyed the canoes. The occupants of the boats,
however, escaped onto a huge raft of ice, the squaws carrying the
children on their shoulders. Then they set up a despairing wail, but
happily the ice was driven against the northern shore and they got
safely to land. They were worn to skeletons and nearly famished. Food
given them by the French was devoured with frenzied avidity, and then,
still unappeased, they took possession of a dead dog that Champlain had
left on the snow as a bait for foxes. They broke this carrion into
fragments, and thawed and devoured it. Such famine conditions were not
unusual among the Algonquins of the lower St. Lawrence, for they never
tilled the soil and made no adequate provision against a time of need.

[Illustration: _On the St. Francis at Sherbrooke_]

Toward the end of winter scurvy broke out with virulence among the
French, and by the middle of May there were only eight survivors.
Pontgrav was back from across the Atlantic the next month, and it was
agreed that Champlain, whose health and courage had remained unshaken,
should set out to find a way to China. As a means of furthering this
enterprise, he had already made an alliance with the Canadian Indians
and had agreed to join them in an expedition against their enemies, the
Iroquois, who dwelt in fortified villages within the limits of the
present state of New York. So in the early summer of 1609 the Hurons and
Algonquins resorted to Quebec, pitched their camps and bedecked
themselves for a war-dance. The dance occurred in the evening. Plenty of
wood had been collected for the fires which blazed brightly and lighted
the gloomy face of the cliff, and the glare fell full on the tawny limbs
and painted visages of the dancers and on brandishing war-clubs and
tomahawks, while the drum kept up its hollow boom, and the air resounded
with yells. A feast followed, and the next day the allies embarked to
proceed against the Iroquois by way of the river Richelieu.

The expedition was successful from the Indian point of view; for a
war-party of the enemy was defeated and the invaders safely retreated.
As for Champlain he gained important knowledge of one of the great
natural highways of the wilderness, and by his alliance with the savages
was enabled to make several long trips later up the Ottawa and to the
Great Lakes.

Meanwhile Quebec grew very slowly. In 1615 four Recollect friars arrived
there from France. Great was the perplexity of the Indians when these
strangely-garbed men landed beneath the rock. Their apparel was mainly
composed of a rude garment of coarse gray cloth, girt at the waist with
a knotted cord and furnished with a peaked hood, while their feet were
shod with thick-soled wooden sandals. They made an altar close by the
fortified dwellings and storehouses, and then celebrated the first mass
ever said in Canada. Nearly all New France kneeled on the bare earth
around the officiating priest, while cannon boomed from the ship and the
ramparts.

About a mile back, on the bank of the St. Charles, the friars built for
themselves in 1620, a small stone house with ditches and outworks for
defence, and here they began a farm and stocked it with a few hogs and
fowls and a pair of donkeys. The only other agriculturist in the colony
was Louis Hebert who had crossed the Atlantic in 1617 with a wife and
three children, and had made for himself a house perched on the rock up
above the settlement. The entire permanent population numbered only
fifty or sixty, so that the chronicler could not have been very much
amiss when he declared that the fort had two old women for garrison and
a brace of hens for sentinels.

The same year that the friars built their stone domicile Champlain
brought his wife to Quebec. He had married her ten years previous when
she was only twelve so that she was still quite youthful. During her
four years in Canada, if we can believe tradition, she charmed everyone
with her beauty and gentleness, and the Indians wanted to worship her as
a divinity.

Nearly all the scanty population of the country consisted of fur-traders
and the men in their employ. The few emigrants lounged about the
trading-houses, or roved the woods on vagabond hunting excursions.
Hostile Indians were prowling around, and in the summer of 1622 the
Iroquois made a descent on the settlement, and assailed the Recollect
convent on the St. Charles. But while some of the friars prayed in the
chapel, the rest with their Indian converts made a brave defence and the
attacking party withdrew.

Political intrigue in the homeland affected adversely the fortunes of
the colony, and the troubles of the various companies that were granted
trading privileges brought it again and again near to ruin. Finally war
broke out between France and England. Quebec had passed through a hard
winter and in the spring of 1628 was on the verge of starvation. Four
armed vessels with a fleet of transports were sent to succor Quebec; but
about the same time an English fleet was dispatched for the St. Lawrence
on a voyage of conquest. Quebec was incapable of defence. Only fifty
pounds of gunpowder were left, and a fort that had been erected a few
years before on the cliff, where now is the Dufferin Terrace, was
tumbling to ruin. The English arrived in the St. Lawrence ahead of the
French fleet and anchored at Tadousac. Some captured Basque fishermen
were sent up the river with a message demanding that Champlain should
surrender. His response was that he would hold his position to the last.
The English commander, deceived by the bold attitude of Champlain,
thought it would not be wise to risk attacking the stronghold. He,
however, encountered the fleet from France, overpowered it, and all the
supplies destined to relieve the hungry tenants of Quebec were either
seized or sunk in the river.

[Illustration: _The citadel crowned height of Quebec_]

The miseries of Quebec increased daily, and the four or five score of
men, women and children cooped up in the fort subsisted on a scanty
pittance of peas and maize. By the time another winter and spring had
passed the food stores were wholly exhausted, and the members of the
colony betook themselves to the woods to gather acorns and grub up
roots. In midsummer three English ships arrived before the town, and
there was nothing for the starved and ragged band of French to do but to
surrender.

When France and England made peace it was agreed that Canada should be
restored to the former power, and Champlain crossed the ocean once more
to the New World and took up his harassing round of cares at the
dilapidated hamlet of Quebec. Ten years later he died on Christmas Day,
after having worked nearly three decades with unceasing ardor for the
welfare of the colony, sacrificing fortune, repose and domestic peace.
Shortly after his death fire destroyed the church near which he was
buried and the place of his interment was forgotten. But in 1856 some
men who were laying water-pipes at the foot of Breakneck Stairs
discovered a mouldering coffin and a few bones in a lofty vault. A
person of distinction had evidently been buried there, and that person
is supposed to have been Champlain, the "Father of New France."

Quebec long continued to lead a precarious existence and the perils of
the wilderness still encompassed it in 1658 when the young Vicomte
d'Argenson crossed the ocean to become governor of the colony. On the
day after he arrived at Quebec, while he was washing his hands before
seating himself to dine in the Chateau St. Louis, he was startled by
cries of alarm. The Iroquois had made a descent on an outlying home, and
their warwhoops and the screams of their victims were distinctly heard.
Argenson ran out and, with such a following as he could muster, hastened
to the rescue; but the nimble assailants had disappeared in the forests
which at that time grew close around the town.

In the years that followed shiploads of emigrants arrived every summer
from France and Quebec was growing into a place that seemed to have a
good deal of stability and promise for the future. But about ten o'clock
one August night in 1682, there was an alarm of fire. Shouts and the
ringing of bells roused the people from their slumber, and they ran
forth to find the flames burning so fiercely in the Lower Town that it
was as light as noonday. Only kettles and buckets were available for
throwing water, and the crowd was bewildered with excitement and
fright. The buildings were all of wood, and those who attempted to
combat the fire had constantly to retreat from the heat and rapidly
spreading flames. Toward morning the fire burned itself out. Fifty-five
buildings had been destroyed, many of them storehouses filled with
goods, so that the property consumed was of greater value than all that
remained in Canada.

Before the town had fully recovered from this disaster, trouble was
again brewing with the English. Count Frontenac was now governor of New
France. He had reached the age of three score years and ten, but the
grizzled veteran was still erect and vigorous, and scarcely less keen,
fiery and headstrong than he had been in his youth. To teach the English
that prudence was advisable and a policy of conciliation toward their
Canadian neighbors he sent various war parties, largely made up of
savages, to lay waste their border settlements. This, however, so roused
the belligerence of the sufferers that a naval expedition was organized
to go to the St. Lawrence. On the sixteenth of October, 1690, a fleet of
ships, schooners and fishing craft from Boston, all thronged with men,
glided into the Basin of Quebec between the town and the Isle of
Orleans. Soon a boat left the fleet carrying a messenger with a letter
from Admiral Phips to the French commander. At the shore the messenger
was blindfolded, and while ostensibly being led to the governor, was
conducted hither and thither and made to clamber over all sorts of
obstructions. A noisy crowd surrounded him in this progress, hustling
him and laughing at his discomfort.

Finally he was brought into the Chateau St. Louis, the bandages were
removed from his eyes, and he found himself in a large hall facing the
stern and haughty Frontenac and his officers in glittering uniforms. He
delivered his letter, which demanded the surrender of all Canada and
gave one hour for the preparation of an answer. Frontenac's reply was an
immediate negative. When the messenger asked that the answer be put in
writing Frontenac said: "I will answer only by the mouths of my cannon."

[Illustration: _A byway adjoining the Basilica_]

The envoy was then blindfolded and sent back as he came. In the days
that followed, the ships engaged in a tremendous bombardment that wasted
a great deal of ammunition and did no damage worth mentioning. Much was
hoped from the efforts of a force of thirteen hundred men that landed
east of the St. Charles, and some desperate fighting ensued. They
suffered greatly. One night while they were on shore ice formed an
inch thick, they were scantily supplied with food, many became sick, and
at the end of four days they were withdrawn.

Phips now called a council of officers, and it was resolved that the men
should rest a day or two, that there should be a meeting for prayer, and
then, if there was sufficient ammunition, another landing should be
attempted. But rough weather interfered with the prayer-meeting, and the
disheartened New Englanders hauled up their anchors and sailed away.
Quebec had meanwhile been awaiting its fate with agitation and alarm.
The pinch of famine had begun to be felt, and in another week the place
would have been helpless. Now it breathed freely again.

The English were gone, but their allies, the Iroquois, continued to
devastate the upper valley, and in 1692 Frontenac, in reprisal for their
barbarities, ordered that two Iroquois prisoners who had been brought to
Quebec should be burned. One stabbed himself in prison. The other was
tortured to death on Cape Diamond by the Christian Hurons, defying them
to the last.

During the next two years the Iroquois suffered greatly, and at length a
deputation was sent to Quebec to treat for peace. Their garments
bespoke their destitute condition. All were dressed in shabby deerskins
and old blankets except their chief orator who wore a scarlet coat laced
with gold, given him by the governor of New York. Frontenac did his best
to win their friendship. He feasted them at his own table and bestowed
gifts so liberally that the tattered ambassadors went home in
embroidered coats, laced shirts and plumed hats. But in the end the
negotiations came to naught.

In the years of comparative peace and security that followed Quebec grew
and prospered, but still retained much of the character of a frontier
town. Education was neglected, and when early in the eighteenth century
a printing press was brought to Quebec, it was looked on with such
disfavor that it was sent back whence it came.

Complaint was made that the young men of the place were too much
inclined to "run wild in the woods for the sake of a few pelts." As for
the young ladies, here is a description of them from the pen of a
traveller who was in Quebec about 1750:

"They are attentive to know the newest fashions, and laugh at each other
when they are not dressed to each other's fancy. A girl of eighteen is
reckoned poorly off if she cannot enumerate at least twenty lovers.
These young ladies, especially those of higher rank, get up at seven and
dress till nine, drinking coffee at the same time. Then they place
themselves near a window that opens into the street, take up some
needle-work, and sew a stitch now and then, but turn their eyes toward
the street most of the time. When a young fellow comes in they
immediately set aside their work, and begin to chat, laugh and joke."

The person quoted affirms that the maidens of Montreal felt "very much
displeased because those of Quebec get husbands quicker than they."

The greatest episode in Quebec's history is its capture by the English
in 1759. War had been raging for several years, but not until then had
the heart of the colony been invaded. In or near Quebec was an army of
sixteen thousand men, under the command of Montcalm, an officer of great
ability who had rendered his country distinguished service. He was a man
of culture, fond of reading and study, and eager to return to his rural
home in France where he had left behind a wife and six children.

The French forces had elements of both strength and weakness. A large
number of Indians were included, and though they were often a great help
in a sudden attack, any protracted movement was distasteful to them, and
it could never be foreseen when they would go off in a huff, or the
various clans fall to fighting among themselves. Montcalm in telling how
grotesquely they painted and dressed says: "You would take them for so
many masqueraders or devils;" and he adds: "One needs the patience of an
angel to get on with them."

Another large portion of the army consisted of Canadians. As
bush-fighters they were marvellously efficient, and they did well behind
earthworks; but when it came to a battle in an open field, they were
disorderly, and were apt to break and take to cover at the moment of
crisis. But Montcalm had no intention of putting them to this test. It
was his plan to avoid a pitched battle and to wear his antagonists out
by making it impossible for them to get at him.

The English expedition was in charge of General James Wolfe. He was in
his thirty-third year, a person of unbounded energy and courage and
ability, but much handicapped by ill-health. His available force for
land operations was less than nine thousand men. What chance had he
against the much larger French army posted behind defensive works that
were almost impregnable by nature?

On June twenty-sixth the English fleet arrived, and anchored off the
south shore of the Island of Orleans, a few miles from Quebec. A
flotilla of fireships had been prepared, which it was hoped would
destroy the English vessels. These sailed down the river one dark night
on their mission; but the nerve of those in charge failed them. They set
fire to their ships a half hour too soon. The vessels were filled with
pitch and tar and other combustibles, mixed with fireworks and bombs,
and they carried various old cannon and muskets loaded to the throat.
Some English sentries posted at the Point of Orleans were so amazed at
the sudden eruption and the din of the explosions, and the flying
missiles, that they lost their wits and fled. Gloomy volumes of smoke
rolled upward, and the sheets of fire illumined the clouds and shed an
infernal glare over the water and the shore and even the distant city.
But the fireships did no harm except to burn alive one of their own
captains and six or seven of his sailors.

Wolfe seized Point Levi opposite Quebec, threw up intrenchments, and
soon was dropping bombs and balls into the town. In a single day
eighteen houses and the cathedral were burned by exploding shells. But
to lay Quebec in ruins was little gain if its defending army was
undefeated. Only a few of the French were needed to protect the almost
inaccessible heights that fronted the river from Quebec westward, and
the army for the most part was posted along the Beauport waterside from
the St. Charles to the Montmorency, a distance of seven or eight miles.
They had thought it impossible for any hostile ship to pass the
batteries of the city; but one night, with a favoring wind, several of
the English vessels sailed to the upper river without suffering serious
injury. Other ships and transports ran the gauntlet later, and a fleet
of flat-boats followed.

The French were by this time on short rations, and the operations of the
enemy above the town made them fearful that their supplies might be cut
off. These came from the districts up the river, sometimes in boats at
night, sometimes by land, and always with a good deal of hazard.

It became more and more difficult to maintain discipline among the
troops, disorder and pillage were rife, and the Canadians deserted so
fast that toward the end of August it is said that two hundred of them
would sometimes go off in a single night.

Wolfe continued to be haunted by illness, and at one time was wholly
incapacitated for a week. His only fear was that he might not be able to
lead his troops in person when he had perfected arrangements for a
desperate attempt to dislodge the foe. He told his physician that he
knew perfectly well he could not be cured, but begged that he might be
put in shape to do his duty for a few days without pain.

While examining the river shore above the town he observed a path, about
a mile from Cape Diamond, that ran with a long slope up the face of the
brushy precipice, and he saw at the top a cluster of tents. These
belonged to a guard of a hundred men stationed there to watch the Anse
du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. Here it was decided to attempt a
landing. On September twelfth everything was ready. The main fleet in
the Basin of Quebec ranged itself along the Beauport shore, and that
night boats were lowered full of men while ship signalled to ship,
cannon flashed and thundered, and shot ploughed the beach as if to clear
a way for assailants to land. Montcalm thought an attack here was
imminent, and he massed his troops to repel it.

The real danger was ten miles up the river. Thirty large bateaux besides
smaller boats lay alongside the vessels there, and seventeen hundred men
had made ready to embark in them. About two o'clock the tide began to
ebb, and the boats cast off and floated away with the current. The stars
were visible, but the night was moonless. General Wolfe was in one of
the foremost boats. As they drifted along he repeated in a low voice to
the officers about him Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard."
"Gentlemen," said he in closing, "I would rather have written those
lines than take Quebec."

When they neared their destination a sentry challenged them; but an
officer who spoke French fluently responded and allayed the sentry's
suspicions. The man on shore concluded the procession of boats was a
convoy of provisions Montcalm's army expected down the river that night.

[Illustration: _Cape Diamond_]

Just below the cove, the troops disembarked on a narrow strand at the
foot of the steep heights. Near by was a rough ravine choked with
forest trees, and in its depths ran a little brook, which, swollen by
recent rains, could be heard splashing down its rocky course. As soon as
the advance parties of English had scaled the heights they saw a cluster
of tents at a short distance and immediately made a dash at them. The
guard detailed for this place was largely made up of Canadians, and the
commandant had allowed many of them to go home for a time to work at
their harvesting. Nor was he keeping a strict watch with those he had
left, and he himself had gone to bed. So there was little resistance.
Some were captured and the rest ran away.

The loud huzzas of the victors announced to their waiting comrades below
the result of the action. At once the entire body of troops began to
scramble up the steep ascent, clutching at trees and bushes, their
muskets slung at their backs. The narrow, slanting path on the face of
the precipice had been made impassable by trenches and abattis; but all
obstructions were soon cleared away. Meanwhile some of the boats had
returned to the vessels for more men, and others had crossed the river
to get troops that were waiting on the south shore.

When day broke, Wolfe had thirty-five hundred men drawn up along the
crest of the heights. They were on the Plains of Abraham, so called from
Abraham Martin, a St. Lawrence River pilot who had owned the land in
early times. It was a rather monotonous grassy plateau with here and
there a patch of corn and clumps of bushes, and it stretched without
fence or inclosure up to the walls of the town.

Montcalm at Beauport had passed a sleepless night listening to the
bellowing of the cannon of the fleet along his front and watching the
boats that hovered off shore. Not until after six o'clock the next
morning was he aware of how the English had outwitted him. In hot haste
he rode to the city, and his army was ordered to follow. Wolfe was now
in a position to cut off his supplies, and there was no choice but to
fight. By ten o'clock Montcalm had mustered a force equal to that of the
English. It formed in three bodies and made an impetuous charge, the men
uttering loud shouts and firing as they advanced. When they were within
forty paces there burst from the English line a crash of musketry.
Another volley followed, and then a few moments of furious clattering
fire. As soon as the smoke rose the ground was seen to be cumbered with
dead and wounded, and the French paused, frantically shouting, cursing
and gesticulating. The English were now ordered to charge, and with
cheers and yells they dashed forward. Only at their right was there any
serious resistance. This came from some sharpshooters concealed in the
bushes and cornfields. Wolfe himself led the charge here. A shot
shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on.
Another shot struck him, but he still advanced, till a third bullet
lodged in his breast. Then he staggered and sat down. Some of his men
ran to his aid and carried him to the rear where they laid him on the
ground. One of them looking back, exclaimed: "They run! See how they
run!"

"Who run?" Wolfe demanded.

"The enemy, sir," was the reply. "They give away everywhere."

"Now God be praised. I will die in peace!" murmured Wolfe, and in a few
moments his gallant soul had departed.

Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne along with the tide of fugitives
toward the town. As he approached the walls a shot passed through his
body. Two soldiers supported him, one on each side, and led his horse
through the St. Louis Gate. He was carried into a house and a surgeon
examined his wound and pronounced it mortal. Montcalm quietly asked how
long he had to live.

"Probably not more than twelve hours," was the reply.

"So much the better," commented the dying general. "I am happy that I
shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec."

He passed away peacefully late that night. In the confusion of the time
no workman could be found to make a coffin, but an old servant of the
Ursuline Convent nailed together a few boards to form a rough box. In it
was laid the body of the dead soldier, and the evening of the same day
he was carried to his rest. The officers of the garrison followed the
bier and some of the populace, including women and children, joined the
procession as it moved in dreary silence along the dusky street,
shattered with cannonball and bomb. A shell bursting under the floor in
the chapel of the Ursuline Convent had made a cavity which had been
hollowed into a grave, and here by the light of torches was buried the
heroic Montcalm.

[Illustration: _Wolfe's Cove_]

The victors had fortified themselves on the battlefield. They were still
greatly outnumbered by the French, and their victory was far from
complete. But the enemy was so disconcerted by what had happened that
the army was ordered to begin an immediate retreat. Quebec with its
little garrison was abandoned to its fate. The cannon remained in the
Beauport intrenchments, the tents were left standing, and the
panic-stricken troops neither carried away nor destroyed the supplies of
food in the storehouses. Utter confusion reigned in the fortress, and
the militia refused to fight. The commandant put on a bold front for a
few days, and when this would serve no longer he surrendered.

Late in October the English admiral fired a parting salute and sailed
down the river carrying a portion of the troops and the embalmed body of
General Wolfe. Ten battalions with artillery and a company of rangers
remained to hold the ruins of Quebec. They repaired the defences and
busied themselves in getting ready for winter. It was not easy to find
comfortable quarters. In the lower town little was left save scorched
and crumbling walls; and the upper town had also suffered much. Murray,
the general in command, was a gallant soldier, upright, humane and
daring. He issued strict orders against harming the Canadians in person
or property, and he hanged a soldier who robbed a citizen. As a rule the
soldiers themselves were as friendly to the conquered people as anyone
could ask. During harvest they helped the French to reap their fields
and shared with them their tobacco and rations.

Winter came with its fierce storms and cold. The supply of fuel
constantly fell short, and the cutting of wood and getting it to the
town was the chief task of the garrison. Parties of axemen, strongly
guarded, were always at work in the forest of Sainte Foy, four or five
miles distant, and thence the logs were dragged on sledges by the
soldiers. Eight of them were harnessed in pairs to each sledge; and as
there was danger from Indians and bush-rangers each man carried a musket
slung on his back. The garrison was afflicted with scurvy and other
diseases, and by spring scarcely more than half of them were fit for
duty. About seven hundred had been temporarily buried in the snowdrifts.
Toward the end of April a French expedition from Montreal eight or nine
thousand strong drew near the town intent on its recapture. Murray went
out to meet it. Snow still lingered nearly everywhere, sodden with
rain, and turned to slush in the hollows. On the plateau near the Anse
du Foulon the two armies encountered. At first the English gained some
slight advantage, but at the end of a two hours' fight they had lost a
thousand men and were driven back to the city. They were even obliged to
leave behind some of their wounded, most of whom were scalped and
mangled by the mission Indians. Now the fate of Quebec was again
trembling in the balance, and the troops in the fortress, officers and
men alike, labored with barrow, pick and spade to strengthen the
defences. But on the ninth of May a British frigate arrived before the
lower town and saluted the garrison. Such was the relief and joy of the
troops that they mounted the parapet in the face of the enemy and
huzzaed and waved their hats for almost an hour, while the gunners made
the country round reverberate with the discharge of their cannon. Other
ships arrived a week later, and two of the English vessels passed the
town to attack the French vessels in the river above. The latter were
all captured or destroyed, and as these contained the army's stores of
food and ammunition, the besieging forces were obliged to withdraw.

Quebec's next taste of war came in the American Revolution. The
rebelling colonies, early in the contest, aspired to the conquest of
Canada, and in August, 1775, an expedition was started down Lake
Champlain under the command of Richard Montgomery. On the twelfth of
November he was in possession of Montreal and there issued a
proclamation urging the Canadians to join hands with the colonies in the
war.

[Illustration: _Overlooking the St. Lawrence from the Plains of
Abraham_]

Meanwhile Benedict Arnold with over a thousand men was making his way
through the forests of Maine toward Quebec. He and his followers went in
boats up the Kennebec. In order to reach the Chaudire which flows into
the St. Lawrence they had to carry boats, oars and baggage on their
shoulders a long distance through the tangled undergrowth of the
primeval woods. Before the end of the portage their shoes were worn out,
their clothes in tatters and their food gone. Some small game was shot
and they devoured their dogs. When they reached the Chaudire, after a
terrible march of thirty-three days, many of their number had succumbed
to starvation, cold and fatigue, while two hundred more had turned back
carrying with them the sick and disabled. The descent of the Chaudire
afforded some respite, and they presently began to find cattle for food.

They arrived at the mouth of the river a little above Quebec, about the
middle of November, crossed the broad St. Lawrence and climbed to the
Plains of Abraham by the same ravine that Wolfe had climbed to victory.
The little, worn-out army, now reduced to seven hundred men, summoned
the garrison of the town to surrender, or come out and fight; but the
garrison would do neither. So Arnold waited for Montgomery to come from
Montreal. He arrived about three weeks later and it was agreed to attack
the defences. On the last day of the year at two o'clock in the morning,
in a blinding snowstorm, Montgomery and Arnold each began a furious
attack on opposite sides of the town. Their assault was a surprise; but
Montgomery in the narrow pass at the base of Cape Diamond, fighting his
way into the Lower Town, fell dead, pierced by three bullets; and his
men, confused by this mishap, hesitated until the enemy was reinforced
and drove them back. Arnold was almost equally unfortunate. He was
severely wounded and carried from the field; and though some of his men
fought their way far into the town this gallant invading party was
finally surrounded and captured.

Arnold with the rest of the troops remained in the neighborhood of the
city until spring when he was reinforced and renewed the struggle. But
assistance had arrived also for the English, so the Americans were
compelled to fall back. Montreal was retaken, and the remnant of the
invading army, after a hazardous retreat, reached Crown Point.

The defeat of Montgomery and Arnold was celebrated in Quebec on the
anniversary of the fight for twenty-five years afterward by
banquettings, dances, military reviews and religious services. An
officer present at the thanksgiving ceremonies conducted by the bishop
in the cathedral on the first anniversary records that: "Eight
unfortunate Canadians who had sided with the rebels were present with
ropes about their necks, and were forced to do penance before all in the
church, and crave pardon of their God, Church and King."




X

THE QUEBEC OF THE PRESENT


Quebec is the quaintest of all American cities. It is superbly situated
on the end of a high, narrow ridge that rises between the St. Lawrence
and the river St. Charles, which flows into the greater stream a little
to the east of the bluff. The boldness of its site, its romantic
history, and its Old World appearance combine to give it a very
exceptional charm. A walled fortification with gates surrounds its more
ancient portion, and this part of the town with its narrow thoroughfares
and frowning battlements is like a fragment of medieval Europe, pervaded
by the atmosphere of departed centuries.

The magnificence of the town's position with the noble river flowing at
its base cannot help impressing all beholders. Especially noteworthy in
the landscape are the long dark lines of the world-famed citadel at the
summit of the cliff. You can travel a score of miles up or down the St.
Lawrence, or ramble nearly as far amid the hills on either side, and a
chance look backward still reveals the fortifications looming against
the sky.

I arrived at Quebec in the evening. The railway station was behind the
cliff away from the river, and when I presently started out to explore I
at once began climbing. How steep the streets were, and how crooked! The
chimes were ringing in one of the big churches as I wended through the
irregular ways, and I felt as if I was in London or Edinburgh. I kept on
mounting higher and higher till at last I came to a vast gloomy height
crowned by masses of stonework that I recognized as military buildings
and fortifications. Then I turned aside and went down to a less
ambitious elevation and at length found myself on Dufferin Terrace,
overlooking the old town at the foot of the cliff and the dark river
beyond.

I was delighted with Quebec that night, and I was no less pleased with
it by daylight. How strange that there should be such a place in the
midst of our American landscape! The air and sky, and the appearance of
the trees and the country roundabout were familiar enough; but the
buildings and the streets and the language were foreign. As a matter of
fact nine tenths of the people are French and Roman Catholics, and many
of the humbler class can neither speak nor understand English.

A favorite method of seeing the city is to drive about in a calche--a
crazy-looking two-wheeled vehicle, but with an antique individuality
that makes it popular with tourists. Indeed, it is only their patronage
that keeps it from becoming obsolete. The wheels are very large and
heavy, and the body, which is suspended between them on broad leather
straps, has a peculiar but gentle motion. Under the hood of the calche
is a seat with room for two persons, and in front is the narrow seat of
the driver. It is certainly a somewhat awkward contrivance, and one
citizen remarked to me that the man who invented it ought to have been
hung; yet it lifts you above the height of ordinary carriages, and this
at least is an advantage for sightseeing.

The portion of the city that skirts the base of the cliff is known as
the Lower Town, while that on the height is called the Upper Town.
Narrow as is the space where the ancient Lower Town stands between the
beetling crag and the St. Lawrence, it was formerly much narrower; for a
considerable portion of its present width has been reclaimed from the
river. To the westward it soon becomes more attenuated, and there is
room for only a single street that skirts around the foot of Cape
Diamond, hugging the cliff as if for safety.

Cape Diamond, whose precipitous uplift is crowned with the citadel,
takes its name from the numerous sparkling quartz crystals found
embedded in its rock. This massive, defiant, outjutting crag could not
fail to greatly impress the early explorers. "Que bec!" (What a beak)
one of Cartier's followers is said to have exclaimed as the first
expedition up the river approached the cliff; and thus, according to
this tradition, was the height and the future city named.

Some students, however, think the name was derived from an Indian word
meaning "the narrows"--a reference to the river, which is here
contracted to much less than its usual width. The cliff had a wilderness
setting then, where now we see clustering roofs, ramparts, fortified
walls, pointed spires and ominous muzzles of cannon. But the face of the
rock, with its rugged grimness somewhat softened by scattered shrubbery,
presented much the same appearance it does today.

In the heart of the Lower Town is the Champlain Market Hall, a big gray
stone building fronting an open square where the wives of the French
Canadian farmers gather with their wares on market days. There they sit
or stand, selling the produce of their gardens and dairies, which they
have brought in the boxes and bags by which they are surrounded. A fleet
of small steamers lying five or six abreast at the market wharf has
served the country women and their produce as a conveyance from their
riverside homes.

While I stood watching the scene one day my attention was attracted by a
woman who went from one display of produce to another critically
examining what was shown and haggling for lower prices. A townsman
standing near me was observing her also, and he said: "They will not
make much out of her. She is a Jewess. Many Jews have come to Quebec in
recent years, and they are getting to control more and more of the
business. A man will reach here in rags, but pretty soon he will have a
little stock of things to sell which he carries around in handbags from
door to door. In five years you will find he has a shop in the town."

Just as he finished this explanation a man came along in a great hurry
and asked the way to the wharf of a certain steamboat line. My
companion replied, and the man bustled away. "That was a blasted
Englishman," said my acquaintance. "I have to be around the wharves a
good deal of the time, and strangers are forever asking me questions.
Some of the questions are downright foolish. Why, the other day a fellow
asked me if I spoke United States. 'What the dickens kind of a language
is that?' I said."

Of all the many narrow streets of old Quebec the queerest is _Sous le
Cap_. It skirts the easterly base of the cliff, winding about the
irregularities and having some added angles of its own. So narrow is it
that in most parts two carts could not pass each other. Clotheslines
extend across overhead, and it is spanned by many closed-in passages
that reach from one upper story to that opposite, and dark little alleys
connect it with the next street below. As a final touch the children of
the street follow the stranger begging for pennies.

[Illustration: _The Champlain Monument_]

The only roadway leading to the Upper Town, unless you go a considerable
distance back from the St. Lawrence, is _Cte de la Montagne_ or
Mountain Street, and this has not been passable for carriages until
comparatively recent years. It is a stiff climb up its winding way, but
this is easier than to go up by the still steeper stairways. The most
notable of the latter form of thoroughfare is what is known as the
Breakneck Stairs close by the Dufferin Terrace. This has one hundred and
sixty-four steps. The flight of stairs is fairly wide and is divided by
a number of iron railings for hand supports. These railings also serve
as a means of descent for the boys, who sit on them sideways and go down
with astonishing velocity. Such use has given the iron a polished
smoothness that is quite noticeable.

A short walk from the upper end of the stairs brings one to Dufferin
Terrace, Quebec's famous promenade. This is half way up the northern
slope of the bluff, nearly two hundred feet above the river which it
fronts. It is a planked platform about a quarter of a mile long, and the
roofs and wharves of the old town under the cliff are immediately below.

A disastrous landslide occurred from the face of the rock that supports
its southern end in 1889. There had been a good deal of rainy weather,
and the water evidently worked its way deep into a fault in the rock.
Thus a great mass was loosened, and between eight and nine o'clock one
September evening it slid down and crashed into a line of tenement
houses on the other side of the road at the foot of the cliff. Most of
the inmates were hurled into eternity without a moment's notice. The
rocks and earth have never been entirely cleared away, and the road here
is several feet higher than its natural level. Some of the adjoining
homes still stand partially wrecked and the rocks that collided with
their walls lie just where they stopped. A portion of the masonry of the
fortress came down in the slide. The break has been mended, but there is
some fear that the adjacent end of Dufferin Terrace may slough off, and
the public is barred from venturing on the doubtful portion.

Back of the Terrace, in the governor's garden, is a twin-faced monument
in honor of the illustrious contending generals, Wolfe and Montcalm, who
both won immortal fame and met death at nearly the same time. The
monument is said to be "strictly classical" in all its proportions, and
therefore, I suppose, ought to be admired as a thing of beauty; but, be
that as it may, it is certainly noteworthy from the unusual fact of its
being erected to honor both the victor and the vanquished.

Not far distant from this spot is the post-office, a massive stone
building that has above its entrance the rudely carved gilded image of
a dog gnawing a bone. You wonder what can be the significance of this
curious tablet. According to a long-cherished tradition, Philibert, the
proprietor of the old house that formerly stood on this site had some
quarrel with an officer named Legardeur, and placed the tablet in the
front wall of his dwelling accompanied by four menacing lines which may
be translated thus:

    I am a dog gnawing a bone.
    While I gnaw I take my repose.
    The time will come, though not yet,
    When I will bite him who bites me.

Some declare that Philibert was assassinated by Legardeur, and that
Philibert's brother pursued the assassin to Europe, and later to the
East Indies where he slew him.

On the upland are many notable buildings, among which should be
mentioned the Archbishop's Palace and the Basilica. The latter is the
city's largest church. It may be said to have been begun in 1645 when
the governor and the inhabitants of the city appropriated twelve hundred
and fifty beaver skins toward the cost of its construction. The building
was ready for partial use five years later, but was not definitely
opened until 1657. Since then it has never closed its doors except for
the making of repairs after the siege of 1759. It suffered much in the
several wars, but the foundations and parts of the walls are the same as
at first. The rarest pictures in the city hang in the Basilica, and
include various canvases from some of Europe's most famous masters. In
the Seminary Chapel adjoining the Basilica are a number of supposed
relics of Christ--portions of the cross, and of the crown of thorns and
seamless robe.

Both the Basilica and the Chapel face on the old marketplace, where, in
by-gone times the rustic housewives used to sit in their carts or
sleighs on market days peddling out their farm produce to the
townspeople. What varied scenes this old square has witnessed--tragic,
gay, martial and religious! Here formerly stood the pillory used for the
punishment of thieves and perjurers; and many a victim did penance in
it.

The older part of the city on the height is still a walled town. Under
French dominion five gates pierced the fortifications, and the English
added two more; but these have all been removed, and the two modern
substitutes appear altogether too trim and youthful to have any
sentiment about them.

[Illustration: _Sous le Cap Street_]

A short walk west of the St. Louis Gate is a height of land, now known
as Perreault's Hill, which up to the end of the eighteenth century was
the general place of execution in Quebec. One romantic story connected
with it relates how a certain French soldier here cheated the gallows,
shortly before the British conquest. The crime for which he had been
condemned was the murder of a comrade who had been known in Quebec as a
very bad character. The previous good conduct of the murderer and the
circumstances that led to his deed won him the sympathy of the
community, and a number of his friends, including his Father Confessor,
plotted to save his life. On the way to the place of execution this
priest exhibited a tender affection for the condemned man, embracing him
warmly, with his arms about the criminal's neck. In one hand, however,
he had a small bottle of nitric acid with which he carefully soaked the
cord that had been put in position ready to serve as the instrument of
the prisoner's death. They arrived at the gallows and the fateful moment
came when the murderer was to drop to his death. But the corroded rope
gave way, and the man's friends who had crowded around the scaffold
quickly opened a passage for his escape. As soon as he had run through
they promptly closed up their ranks to prevent the soldiers from
following him. The ruse was successful; for the fugitive, after hiding a
few days in a cooper's shop of the Lower Town, made good his escape to
France, the cooper having put him on board a departing vessel in a
barrel.

Quebec's important place in history has rested primarily on the fact
that here was one of the most impregnable positions of defence in the
world. Of all the strongholds in British territory this is only excelled
by Gibraltar. The citadel, which faces the St. Lawrence on the highest
part of the bluff, three hundred and forty feet above the river, covers
an enclosed area of forty acres and was built from plans approved by the
Duke of Wellington. The main approach to it is up the steep hill from
the St. Louis Gate through a labyrinth of high walls and earthworks that
are loopholed for musketry, and pierced with openings where gleam the
mouths of cannon.

When the French erected their wooden fortifications on the height, so
much money disappeared in the process, not a little of it absorbed by
graft, that Louis XIV is reported to have asked whether the defences of
Quebec were built of gold. The present citadel dates back to 1823, at
which time the sum of twenty-five million dollars was expended on it.
Its construction is very massive, and many of the buildings are
considered bomb-proof. Underground passages are alleged to communicate
with certain localities outside of the fortress, but knowledge of these
is not for general diffusion.

Visitors are halted beneath the arch of the entrance by an armed guard,
and a soldier is detailed to show them around. The outer buildings are
half buried in the earth, and the green turf overgrows the roofs. It
seemed as if a foe would have small chance of seriously damaging them,
and the entire aspect of the place is satisfactorily grim and stout. Of
especial interest to visitors from the States is a little bronze cannon
captured at Bunker Hill. "You've got the cannon, but we've got the
hill," remarked one Yankee to his guide.

"Yes," responded the guide, "but if the hill had been on wheels as the
cannon was, we'd have carried that off too."

The garrison is Canadian and numbers three hundred and sixty-five, a man
for every day in the year apparently, and I suppose an extra one is
added on leap years. They are not called on to do much strenuous work,
and are free to use their time as they please a considerable portion of
each day. There is no anxiety on their part as to where their food and
clothes are to come from, and the worst evil that is likely to befall a
man is a temporary lodgment behind the bars of the citadel jail for
drunkenness.

From an angle of the outer ramparts known as the King's Bastion one gets
the most imposing view of the river that Quebec affords. The downlook
from amid the cannon onto the town and the great river and the broad
landscape beyond is truly magnificent.

[Illustration: _Quebec--A Calche_]

At the foot of the lofty cliff a narrow road winds along westward in and
out of the irregularities with an almost continuous line of quaint old
houses on either side. The dwellings are apt to be decrepit and shabby,
yet they are nearly all occupied. Ancient rotting wharves reach out into
the river, and both these and the buildings are suggestive of a
prosperous and lively past. This road furnishes one of the most
picturesque rides or walks in the Quebec vicinity, and at the end of
about a mile it takes you to Wolfe's Cove. By then the houses have
ceased, and here is a slight inreach of the river, and a heavily
wooded glen makes a break in the giant wall of the bluff. It is a steep,
hard climb to the upland, even with the carefully graded road to make
the way easier. At the top you come forth on the Plains of Abraham, now
mostly laid out in streets, and having numerous trees and many suburban
homes to intercept the view. Half way back to the town is a monument
marking the spot where "Wolfe died victorious." This is on the verge of
a public park--a large dreary common which has much the character of the
original Plains as they were when the battle was fought. From there you
can look off on the dreamy river with its bordering towns and boats
coming and going; and on its far side, somewhat up the stream, you can
see the ruins of the monster Quebec Railway Bridge.

This was to span the St. Lawrence at a height of one hundred and fifty
feet above the water. Toward the end of August, 1907, a long arm of it
reaching out from the south shore went down. Signs of weakness had been
observed some time previous, and many of the workmen had refused to go
out on it. The catastrophe occurred within a few minutes of five
o'clock, at which hour work would have ceased for the day. The noise of
the fall was like thunder and was heard for miles. Over seventy men were
hurled to death, and only two of those who went down survived. Those who
perished were mostly from the States and were reputed to be the finest
workmen in the world, whose places could not be filled. "I didn't care a
hang about the bridge," one of my informants remarked--"that could have
gone and welcome if it hadn't carried the men to destruction, too."

One of the historic suburbs of Quebec is Cap Rouge, about ten miles
west. I went thither by a stage that left the post-office late one
summer afternoon. The vehicle was a rude sort of an omnibus with a long
seat extending lengthwise on either side. Both seats were filled with
women passengers who carried numerous baskets and bundles and I sat in
front with the driver amid a heap of mailbags. The load was a heavy one
for the two horses, and the driver kept uneasily urging them forward,
jerking his reins, chirruping or speaking to them, and now and then
mildly flicking them with his whip. We paused at intervals to let off or
take on passengers, deliver mail, and once to pay at a toll gate. The
road was hard and well-graded, and it was pleasantly lined by trees and
shrubbery. All the way we were on the upland until we approached Cap
Rouge, which is a little place in a glen that opens out on the St.
Lawrence. Here we made a steep descent of a long hill, and midway a
polestrap broke and let the heavy wagon run onto the heels of the
horses. There was panic among the women passengers, and though the
driver quickly brought his vehicle to a stop by applying the brake, they
all piled out at the rear and walked the rest of the way. Cap Rouge
proved to be a delightful little nook, as secluded and peaceful as one
could wish; but a good deal marred by a gigantic railroad trestle that
strides across the valley.

On the beach at St. Augustin, a few miles farther up the river is a
deserted church, built in 1648, that the devil in the shape of a horse
is said to have assisted in constructing. This horse was employed in
carting immense stones that were beyond the power of an ordinary horse
to move. Those in charge of it were careful never to take off its
bridle, as it was understood that in the bridle was the magic power
which kept the horse to its task. At last, however, a workman who was
watering the horse thoughtlessly removed the bridle to allow the
creature to drink better. Immediately the beast disappeared in a cloud
of burning sulphur.

Nowhere in the St. Lawrence Valley is there a region so rich in legend
as this in the neighborhood of Quebec, and not a little of its charm is
due to these quaint stories that have come down from the shadowy past.




XI

FROM CAPE DIAMOND TO THE GULF


Just below Quebec is the great Isle of Orleans, originally christened by
Cartier the "Isle of Bacchus" on account of the great profusion of vines
and grapes there. It was also for a long time commonly known as
"Wizards' Isle," in the belief that the Indians who inhabited it were in
such close touch with nature they could predict with certainty the
coming of a storm or a high tide. Some persons claimed that at night
phantom lights played over the island shores and near waters. The white
inhabitants were much alarmed by this report until it was found that the
"spirit lights" were torches in the hands of dusky fishermen. Uncanny
stories long continued to be told, but now the peaceful and attractive
isle with its villages and farms is quite free from all suggestion of
supernatural visitants.

On the mainland opposite the west end of the island are the far-famed
Falls of Montmorency. They are in plain sight from the St. Lawrence,
set back in a rounded niche of the high northern shore. The Falls are
nearly a hundred feet higher than those of Niagara, but the less
emphasis the visitor puts on this fact the better; for the tendency is
not to think of the actual beauty of the Falls, but to compare them
disparagingly with the tremendous volume of Niagara and doubt if they
are really as high as is claimed. One does not get near enough below to
correctly take in the immensity of the leap made by the stream, which
for the whole two hundred and fifty feet of its perpendicular fall is
broken into white and fleecy foam on the face of the rock. Then it
spreads itself in broad thin sheets over a floor of stones and gravel,
and slips tamely away to the St. Lawrence.

There was formerly a suspension bridge over the river at the very brink
of the Falls; but some fifty or more years ago it broke away from its
moorings and was swept over the cataract, carrying with it an
unfortunate farmer and his family who were driving across. The bodies
were never recovered, for all objects passing over the Falls disappear
in a subterranean cavity worn by the constant pounding of the water. The
stone piers of the bridge still remain.

By no means all the flow of the river is allowed to go over the wild,
wooded cliff simply to furnish a spectacle for sightseers. There is a
dam at the crest and enough of the water is deflected to furnish power
for lighting the city of Quebec.

An electric railway makes the Falls easily accessible, and it continues
many miles farther down the shore. The outlook from the car windows
gives an excellent opportunity for observing to advantage the farms
characteristic of the St. Lawrence waterside. These were originally of
considerable breadth, but large families necessitated subdivision when
the land was handed down from generation to generation, and as every
proprietor desired a frontage on the river, the strips have become
marvellously narrow.

On these farms can be seen the typical Canadian country dwelling. It is
a low modest structure with a roof that ends at the eaves in a sudden
outward curve, like that of a Chinese pagoda. Such roofs are not,
however, confined to the country, for costly brick or stone houses in
the towns often have the same peculiarity. One cannot help fancying that
the reason of it may be in the climate and that the curve was
originated to shoot the sliding snow farther away from the dwelling. The
projection is an efficient protection to doors and windows without
interfering seriously with the light, and in many cases it covers a
veranda.

Twenty miles from Quebec on this north shore we arrive at St. Anne de
Beaupr where over one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims resort
annually to pay their devotions at this shrine of world-wide fame. The
shrine is the chief support of the railway, which has been solemnly
consecrated and blessed by the cardinal, as have even the cars in which
the pilgrims travel.

The village is rather a garish looking place with its big church and its
chapels and other buildings of a religious nature, its huddle of hotels
and souvenir shops. It has a striking setting in the landscape; for
immediately behind is an abrupt and lofty hill, and to the east is a
succession of wild mountain promontories reaching out into the river.
But the river shore opposite the town is a gently inclined beach,
reed-grown in its higher portion, and muddy and stone-strewn where the
tide exposes it beyond.

[Illustration: _Saint Anne de Beaupr_]

St. Anne, in whose honor the great church just back from the waterside
was built, was the mother of the Virgin Mary. When she died she was
buried in Jerusalem. Later the infidels overran the Holy Land pillaging
and destroying, and they dragged the coffin of St. Anne forth from its
tomb, but could neither open nor burn it. So they threw it into the sea,
and it floated away to the town of Apt in France on the shore of the
Mediterranean. There it lay for a long time buried in the sand. One day
some fishermen of Apt caught in their net an enormous fish. They dragged
it to the land, and before they succeeded in killing it, the fish in its
struggling made a deep hole in the sand and laid bare the coffin of St.
Anne. The fishermen tried to open the coffin, but did not succeed any
better than had the infidels in the Holy Land. They informed the bishop,
Aurelius, of this strange phenomenon, and he had the coffin walled into
a crypt of the church. In the course of time St. Anne became the
patroness of Brittany, and presently it began to be rumored that at
Auray where a shrine had been dedicated to her she performed miraculous
cures for those who trusted her.

A few years after the founding of Quebec a crew of Briton sailors,
voyaging to the new world, were buffeted by a terrible tempest and vowed
they would build a shrine in honor of St. Anne, if she guided them
safely through the storm. They survived the gale, and when they landed
on the shore of the St. Lawrence at the spot where now stands the
beautiful Basilica they erected a little wooden chapel in fulfillment of
their promise. At the time this primitive edifice was rebuilt in 1660,
one of the villagers of Beaupr who desired to help in the work was a
man suffering much bodily pain. He thought he would have the strength to
show his devotion by laying three stones of the foundation, but dared
hope for nothing more. While he was engaged in the task, however, the
pain suddenly left him. His cure was attributed to St. Anne, and a woman
who had been bent double by some affliction for eight months began to
invoke the saint as soon as she heard of the miracle, and was instantly
as well able to stand on her feet and move her limbs as she had ever
been.

Miracle after miracle followed until the rude little hamlet was the talk
of all New France. Pilgrims in great numbers began to resort to St. Anne
de Beaupr, and many journeyed thither even in winter, travelling on the
frozen river in their sleighs. Before the great annual feast day of the
saint the Micmac Indians who came regularly from New Brunswick to
trade, would be seen in their canoes paddling up stream to the shrine,
where they built birch bark huts to shelter the pilgrims. The peculiar
fame of the place appealed especially to the sea-faring folk, and it was
a regular custom of vessels ascending the St. Lawrence to fire a
broadside salute when passing.

One legend of the place is that the English troops in waging war against
the French once took possession of the village and burned all of it
except the church. Three times they set fire to the building, but their
efforts did not avail against the protecting spirit of good St. Anne.

To the Canadian peasantry St. Anne de Beaupr became and still is as
sacred as was Jerusalem to the Jews, and they resort to the shrine to be
cured of all the various ills to which the flesh is heir. They believe
that miracles are wrought here just as in Bible times. The blind are
made to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk with ease, and strength
and vigor are restored to those nigh to death. All this is done through
the intercession of the good St. Anne, one of whose finger bones in a
glass case is shown and venerated at the Basilica. There is also shown,
among other treasures, a piece of rock from the grotto in which the
virgin Mary was born.

The sanctity of devotion and the marvels of the miraculous permeate the
whole atmosphere of St. Anne de Beaupr. But while many of the visitors
have come to get nearer the Deity, who they think works miracles here
which neither prayers nor piety would elicit elsewhere, others come to
contemplate what seems to them merely a strange manifestation of human
nature with possibly some occult significance which they cannot fathom.
But whatever it is that brought them, the character of the place is
calculated to stir the emotions and make the fervor of the devout more
fervent and subdue the critical.

In front of the church is a wide yard with lawn and shrubbery at the far
side, but the nearer half is an expanse of pebbles that shift
disagreeably under the feet. The church interior is rich in color, and
its dim light, its kneeling worshippers and wandering sightseers, and
its shaven monks with their brown robes and sandaled feet combine to
make a strange picture. The visitors are of many nationalities, and for
their edification the priests in charge of the church deliver sermons in
German, Italian, Dutch and Spanish as well as in English and French.

[Illustration: _The sacred stairway_]

Even unbelievers cannot but be impressed by the crowded array of
crutches, splints and other supports of a crippled body piled up eleven
tiers high about the pillars at the rear of the great church--all left
by their former owners whose infirmities were here cured. Amongst the
various articles in this collection I noticed a bottle of nerve tonic,
and there were several shoes with thick soles to make up for the
deficiency in the length of a leg. Could it be possible that St. Anne
had made the shrunken limb perfect? Those whose sight had been
rejuvenated had left behind their glasses in great numbers; but there
were blind beggars on the pebbles outside rattling a few coins in their
tin cups to attract the attention of visitors to their pitiable
condition--could not St. Anne heal them, or was their occupation so
profitable they did not wish to be healed? One wall case in the church
was filled with a decorative arrangement of pipes and snuff boxes left
by tobacco users, who had determined under the inspiration of the place
to be clean in this respect also.

The most interesting of the neighboring chapels is that of the Scala
Sancta or Holy Stairs, a short distance up the hill. All the space in
front is very thriftily cultivated, and at the time of my visit was
full of onions, cabbages, carrots and other vegetables growing in neat
rows. The stairs are a facsimile in wood of the famous twenty-eight
steps of white marble at Rome, brought from Jerusalem in the fourth
century and placed in the palace of the Sovereign Pontiff. At Jerusalem
they are supposed to have formed the staircase leading to the Pretorium,
and therefore have been trodden six times by the footsteps of Christ. As
at Rome, so at La Bonne Sainte Anne, these stairs are deeply venerated
by all pilgrims. Each step contains a relic of the Holy Land, and the
devout ascend them on their knees, the only way allowed, pausing on each
to pray or meditate on the Passion of the Savior. From the top of the
stairs descent is made by a flight of steps on either side to the level
of the entrance.

The scenery of the north shore of the St. Lawrence beyond Beaupr is
very inspiring all the way to the Saguenay, and the land to the south is
so dim and distant that the voyage along this rugged shore is much like
skirting a sea coast. The constant succession of big, rude heights
rarely affords any encouragement to human habitations. Yet here and
there a small hamlet has established itself in a glen or clings at the
foot of a precipitous bluff. It would seem as if the rocky ramparts
along this shore could hardly have presented a wilder aspect to the
early explorers, and the river itself is even now much of the time just
as lonely as it was then, for often not a sail or a steam vessel is in
sight.

About thirty miles below Quebec is a little group of islands in
mid-river, the largest of which is known as Crane's Island. On the
highest point of this island there was formerly a fine chateau. Its
builder was a gay courtier in the social circles of France in early
manhood. He married a lady of great beauty, but of a temperament that
demanded immediate compliance with her slightest wishes, and she and her
husband were far from being happy. One day she upbraided him for being
too attentive to his acquaintances among the court beauties, and he
proposed that they should put themselves beyond the power of arousing
each other's jealous criticism in future by going to New France and
building a home in some secluded spot beside the St. Lawrence.

This wilderness exclusiveness suited the fancy of the lady, and they
journeyed across the Atlantic. They selected Crane's Island for their
dwelling-place, and soon the feathered denizens which had there held
their right of domain for ages were frighted to other haunts by the
hammer of civilization erecting the new house.

[Illustration: _The Isle of Hazels as seen from Les Eboulements_]

At length Chateau Le Grande, as the owner called it, was ready for
occupancy, and in this lonely retreat Monsieur and his wife at first
lived very happily; for they both loved nature and found much to enjoy
in their picturesque surroundings. The years passed on serenely until
Madame became aware that her husband was often absent from home, and
though he made liberal and plausible excuses she was not satisfied. It
was his habit in these absences to go away across the river in a boat.
One day when he had gone off thus Madame determined to follow him. As
the sun was sinking behind the purple mountains on the western horizon
she rowed across to the opposite shore. She had been told that the
Indians were having a dance a few miles above, and thought she would
find her truant husband among them. Sure enough, she presently came to a
village in a forest glade where in the firelight the wild pantomimic
dance was in progress, and in the midst of the dancers was her husband
with a dusky Indian belle for his partner. Madame glided forward and
confronted him. Over her shapely shoulders she wore a thick dark
cloak, and the Indians fled at sight of her tall supernatural figure,
thinking she was some evil spirit. Monsieur alone remained, and at a
motion from his wife he followed her in crestfallen silence as she
strode away into the darkness toward the river. They returned to their
chateau. There she faced him imperiously and said, "When you brought me
here from our old home across the ocean you made a vow to grant me any
demand I might make, if you proved recreant to your pledge of fidelity.
Are you ready to fulfil your promise?"

"Name it," said he.

"You are never to leave this island again as long as you live," she
responded.

He accepted the verdict with bowed head, and afterward kept to the
chateau and its immediate neighborhood. But the place had lost its
former cheerfulness, and instead of gaiety there was soberness and
melancholy. Finally Monsieur died and his lady sailed away to France,
and left the chateau to crumble into ruin.

Another island having more than ordinary interest is the Isle aux
Coudres, so named by Cartier from the abundance of hazel trees growing
there at the time of his voyage. When he arrived at the Isle he found
the natives busy catching white whales. In later years the French took
up this industry. The method employed was very simple. Saplings long
enough to reach above high water were driven in a row into the shelving
beach where they would be left out of water at low tide, each end of the
row stopping with a half circle curve inward. The whales coming with the
tide in pursuit of shoals of smelts and herrings that keep close to the
shore, unwittingly swam into the trap set for them. When they sought to
return they found themselves confronted by this curved line of poles. In
their efforts to escape they became more and more frightened. At the end
of the swaying barrier the twist turned them back on their course, and
they continued in a frenzy, swimming up and down till the ebbing tide
left them high and dry, easy victims to the assaults of the fishermen.
As many as three hundred have been captured at the incoming of a single
tide. The whales attain a length of fifteen or twenty feet, and when it
is recalled that each yields an average of about seventy gallons of oil
worth a dollar a gallon, and that the skin is very valuable for leather,
the lucrativeness of the employment is evident, provided the whales are
reasonably plentiful.

One of the pleasures of voyaging on the river here is to watch the
porpoise-like gambols of these whales, and it is of interest to know
that the waters also abound in halibut, sturgeon, salmon and smaller
fish.

A neighboring indentation of the north shore is the Bay St. Paul. This
Bay is said to have been the center of a fierce elemental war in 1663.
For six months earthquakes were felt throughout Canada. Along the St.
Lawrence meteors filled the air, which was dark with smoke and cinders,
the grass withered, and the crops would not grow. New lakes were formed,
the contour of the country was changed, and a hill slid down into the
river and formed an island.

Another story of the instability of the earth in this region has to do
with the village of Les Eboulements. This used to stand by the shore of
the Bay, but the river made such encroachments that about 1830 it was
removed to its present picturesque but exposed position on the shoulder
of a great ridge a thousand feet above the water. This removal and the
region's early earthquake experience have given rise to the romantic
legend that the old village was engulfed by the St. Lawrence, and that
its houses and church can sometimes be seen in the river depths when
the water is clear and unruffled.

Somewhat farther down the river is that popular resort for tourists,
Murray Bay, the Newport of the St. Lawrence. On the east side of the Bay
rises the lofty Cap aux Corbeaux, a name given to the peak by the early
explorers because of the crows that hovered around its jagged cliffs.
Great numbers of these birds continue even to this day to build their
nests among the inaccessible crags, and the caribou browses on the wild
slopes, and the bears fatten on the berries of the dwarfed bushes
clinging in the rocky crevices.

The country folk affirm that the mountain is the abode of demons, and
that in the days of old a giant held sway there. But the cross of Christ
brought by white men drove this barbaric monster to take refuge in the
solitudes of Labrador. He is still angry at having been forced from a
throne he had held so long, and he frequently stamps his great feet
wrathfully, and gives voice to threatening thunder tones, shaking the
entire north shore with terrifying violence. Thus is explained the
occasional earthquake shocks to which the region is subject.

The scenery in and about Murray Bay is exceptionally wild and fine, the
air is bracing and the fishing excellent. In the village can be had all
the comforts of civilization; yet a few miles back from the river the
country is an almost unexplored wilderness of rugged hill and forest--a
hunter's paradise.

The next place of importance is Tadousac at the mouth of the Saguenay.
Below there no one goes on the north shore unless he is a salmon fisher,
and the interior of the bordering country retains in the main its
aboriginal savagery. The south shore has inhabitants, but makes no very
strong appeal in a scenic way until the gulf is reached. Here, at the
end of the Gasp Peninsula, is Gasp Bay, twenty miles in length and
ending in a basin large enough to shelter a thousand vessels. The Bay
was early known to the French fishermen and explorers, and in 1534
Cartier had erected a cross on the shore thirty feet high, decked it
with his country's flag and proclaimed the region around to be a
possession of the King of France.

A little farther south, rising from the water just off a projection of
the coast is Perc Rock, five hundred feet in length and about three
hundred high. The top is nearly flat, and on all sides the cliffs
descend perpendicularly to the sea. In spite of its massive proportions
the pounding waves have sculptured an arch through the rock near the
outer end, and this is what gives it its name. The strange and lonely
rock is one to stir the fancy and it is no wonder that romantic and
supernatural tales are told of the vicinity. One of these stories is of
a maid of Brittany whose lover was among the earliest voyagers to come
and seek his fortune in the wilderness valley of the St. Lawrence. The
maiden would have accompanied him on his hazardous journey, but he
thought it best she should remain behind till he sent for her. Soon
after reaching Quebec he arranged for her coming, and wrote to have her
cross the ocean to him on the next ship. She hastened to comply, but the
vessel on which she sailed was captured by a Spanish corsair. She alone
of all those on board was spared. Her beauty had so appealed to the
pirate captain that he announced his intention to make her his wife. But
she repelled his advances, and neither entreaty nor threat could move
her. Finally, in revenge for her persistent refusal, he swore that she
should never join her lover in Quebec, but that he would sail up the
river past the town on the crag, and in sight of its inhabitants she
should be put to death.

This impending fate so preyed on her mind that when the vessel
approached the mouth of the great river she eluded her watchers and
sprang overboard. The efforts made to rescue her were in vain and the
ship went on; but shortly afterward the lookout saw on ahead the form of
a woman gliding along over the waves, her clinging garments dripping
with the salt spray. He perceived too that she seemed to have some
mysterious power over the vessel, which had been drawn from its course
and was moving with increasing rapidity toward a vast cliff that rose
from the sea a little off the wild coast.

An alarm was sounded and every effort was made to turn the ship in
another direction. But still it was drawn on in the wake of the strange
feminine figure, and the frantic orders shouted by the captain and the
frenzied labors of his crew availed nothing. An invincible power
controlled the ship and it never paused till it collided with the great
rock. That same instant the vessel, and its crew and all that was in it
changed to stone and became a part of the rock itself. There was a time
when the petrified ship could be clearly seen on the face of the cliff.
The waves have gradually effaced it, but a certain point of rock still
remains that is said to have been the vessel's bowsprit. The wraith of
the unfortunate maiden continues to linger in the neighborhood of the
rock, and those who have seen her declare she is very beautiful. It is
generally believed, however, that when the last vestige of the ship is
worn from the rock the lady will appear no more. She only shows herself
at sunset--which was the time she leaped to her death, and at that hour
no fisherman of the region cares to hazard his luck by dropping a line
for fish.

[Illustration: _The Falls of Montmorency_]

Another tragic spot is found at the opposite side of the wide mouth of
the river, where is an island on which was wrecked an ill-fated British
expedition that had set forth to conquer Canada in 1711. There were nine
ships of war and about sixty transports and other vessels, carrying in
all some twelve thousand men. The fleet was in charge of Admiral Walker.
Its greatest lack was pilots for the St. Lawrence, but before it reached
the river a French vessel was captured commanded by a skipper named
Paradis, who was an experienced old voyager and knew the river well. In
consideration of a liberal bribe he consented to act as pilot, but he
rather dampened the ardor of the admiral by his dismal accounts of the
Canadian winter. The state of the commander's mind can be judged from
this entry in his journal:

"That which now chiefly took up my thoughts was contriving how to secure
the ships if we got to Quebec; for the ice in the river freezing to the
bottom would have utterly destroyed and bilged them as much as if they
had been squeezed between rocks."

However, it was still summer, and all went well till the evening of
August twenty-second. They were then some distance above the great
island of Anticosti where the river is seventy miles wide. There was a
strong east wind with fog. Walker thought that he was not far from the
south shore, when in fact he was comparatively near the north shore. At
half-past ten he retired to his berth and was falling asleep, when an
officer hastily entered and begged him to come on deck, saying there
were breakers on all sides. The admiral scoffed at such a possibility
and would not stir. Soon afterward the officer returned imploring him
for Heaven's sake to come up and see for himself or all would be lost.
At the same time the admiral heard a great noise and trampling, and he
hastily put on his dressing-gown and slippers and hurried on deck. Just
then the fog opened and the moon shone forth revealing a scene of fright
and confusion. The breaking surf was in plain sight, but by making all
sail the ship succeeded in beating to windward and avoiding the danger.
Other vessels of the fleet were not so fortunate and all night there was
firing of cannon and showing of lights indicating the utmost distress.
"It was lamentable to hear the shrieks of the drowning, departing
souls," writes one of the survivors. Eight transports, one storeship and
one sutler's sloop were dashed to pieces, and nearly a thousand men
perished.

After the men who had succeeded in reaching shore had been rescued it
was decided that the expedition should be abandoned, though it was not
by any means hopelessly crippled. But the admiral seems to have been
possessed by a sort of nightmare with regard to the Canadian climate. He
even saw cause for gratitude in his own mishaps; because, had he arrived
safe at Quebec, his provisions would soon have been consumed, and he and
all his men would have perished of cold and hunger. "I must confess," he
says in his journal, "the contemplation of this strikes me with horror;
for how dismal must it have been to have beheld the seas and earth
locked up by adamantine frosts and swollen with high mountains of snow,
in a barren and uncultivated region; great numbers of brave men
famishing with hunger and drawing lots who should die first to feed the
rest."

The expedition had aroused great anxiety at Quebec and this continued
until the nineteenth of October when word came of the disaster. Three
Frenchmen and one Indian sent to watch for the English fleet had
descended the St. Lawrence in a canoe and discovered the wrecks at Egg
Island. They told how the shore was strewn with hundreds of human
bodies, besides dead horses, sheep, dogs and hens, casks, cables,
anchors, planks, shovels and much else.

This "miracle" of deliverance was interpreted at Quebec to show "God's
love for Canada, which of all these countries, is the only one that
professes the true religion."

Amazing stories circulated concerning the English losses. It was said
that three thousand of "these wretches" died after reaching land in
addition to the multitude that was drowned, and even this did not
satisfy divine justice, for God blew up one of the ships by lightning
during the storm. Vessels sent to gather up the spoils came back laden
"with marvellous treasure, including rich clothing, plate, silver-hilted
swords and the like," and reported that though the autumn tides had
swept away many of the corpses, more than two thousand still lay on the
rocks, in attitudes of despair.

How tragic was the early history of the river! But now it is a stream of
commerce and pleasure, in most ways wholly beneficent; and for stories
of human woe one has to delve into the shadowy past. May the time never
come when this will be otherwise!

[Illustration: _On the Saguenay steamer_]




XII

THE BEAUTIFUL SAGUENAY


Commercially the New World yielded little to the French for many years,
except to the fisherman; but the wilderness had its treasures as well as
the ocean, and it needed only the enticement of a few knives, beads and
trinkets to induce the Indians to part with the spoils of their winter
hunting. Gradually the fishermen abandoned their old vocation for the
more lucrative trade in bear and beaver skins. They built rude huts at
convenient places along the waterways, abused the Indians and quarrelled
with each other. One of their trading-posts was established in 1598 at
Tadousac where the Saguenay joins the St. Lawrence. A cluster of wooden
cabins was built amid the wild rocky heights clad with pines, firs and
birches, and sixteen men were left to guard the expected harvest of
furs. Before the winter was over several of the men had died, and the
rest scattered through the woods, living on the charity of the Indians.
A second and a third attempt was made to establish a trading-post at
Tadousac, and more lives wasted.

In 1608 the French king granted a nobleman of his court named De Monts a
monopoly of the St. Lawrence fur trade for one year, and a vessel was
dispatched to Tadousac. When it arrived, Pontgrav, the commander, found
a Basque ship there ahead of him. A brisk trade was already in progress
with the Indians, and a little back from the cove that served as a
harbor, were the lodges of the Indian camp--stacks of poles covered with
birch bark. Pontgrav displayed the royal letters, which gave De Monts
the exclusive trading rights, and ordered the Basques to cease their
traffic.

But the latter proved refractory and fired on Pontgrav with cannon and
musketry, wounding him and two of his men and killing a third. They then
boarded his vessel and carried off his guns and ammunition, with a
promise to restore them when they finished trading and were ready to
return home. Champlain in another vessel representing the De Monts'
interest arrived a few days later, and the Basques, though strong enough
to fight with reasonable chance of success, concluded to come to terms.
A treaty of peace was therefore drawn up and signed, and they betook
themselves to catching whales, while Pontgrav busied himself in
transferring to the hold of his ship such furs as he could secure. The
Indians with whom he trafficked were Algonquins, gatherers of the skins
of the moose, caribou and bear, and of the beaver, martin, otter, fox,
wildcat and lynx. They served, too, as intermediate traders between the
French and the roving bands who inhabited the dreary stretch of forest
between the headwaters of the Saguenay and Hudson's Bay. In their light
canoes the fur-seekers penetrated the remotest wilds and then returning
by the devious waterways descended to the mart at Tadousac.

Several Recollect friars came to the New World in 1617 to look after the
spiritual welfare of the traders and Indians. To one of these named
Dolbeau, was assigned the vast wilderness around and to the north of the
Saguenay, with its wandering tribes of Montagnais. Full of zeal he
started the next winter to follow the roving hordes to their frozen
hunting-grounds. But he was not robust, and his eyes were weak. Lodged
in a hut of birch bark that was full of dogs, fleas and stench, he at
length succumbed to the smoke which had well-nigh blinded him. After
debating the matter within himself he decided that God did not require
of him the sacrifice of his sight, and went to Quebec. Yet in the spring
he returned and journeyed in his territory so far that he came in
contact with outlying bands of Esquimaux.

The previous summer mass was said for the first time at Tadousac by
another priest of the order. The ceremony took place in a chapel built
of branches, and two sailors stood beside the priest waving green boughs
to drive off the mosquitoes.

[Illustration: _Chicoutimi_]

Tadousac was the center of the Canadian fur trade for many years; but as
the fur-bearing animals disappeared, so did the commercial and political
glory of the village at the mouth of the Saguenay. The appeal of the
region up the river was not very strong to settlers, and until about
1840 it continued to be a wilderness, practically unknown except to the
few hunters who penetrated its fastnesses. Since then its forest
resources have attracted capital, the sections adapted to farming have
been developed, and various thriving towns have sprung into being. It is
no longer a region of isolated trading-posts. As for Tadousac, that is
now a quiet hamlet, its prosperity less dependent on commerce than on
its noble scenic surroundings. It has the distinction of being the first
French station on the St. Lawrence from which evolved a permanent town;
and there is still standing in the village a little church which was the
earliest built in Canada. However, the most dominant feature of the
place at present is a great wide-spreading wooden hotel for summer
vacationists. The vicinity is famous for its fishing which offers a
variety extending from the Tommy cod for the children to the river,
lake, and brook trout and salmon that delight the most exacting angler.

Without doubt the Saguenay trip is one of the greatest attractions that
the St. Lawrence Valley has to offer. It begins at Quebec and occupies
two days. The start is made down the St. Lawrence in the early morning,
and, touching along at the north shore villages, you reach Tadousac in
the evening and go up the Saguenay at night. On my trip up the latter
stream the deep starlit sky was illumined by faint weird streaks and
bands of the aurora, and I sat long on deck watching this electric
display and the black mountains that guarded the shores. At dawn the
next day we were pushing along intermittently up the river waiting on
the pleasure of a fog that was slowly drifting ahead of us. So we were
much behind our schedule in arriving at Chicoutimi, the head of
steamboat navigation. This place is the great lumber-yard of the north,
to which the timber is brought down chiefly by the rapid upper Saguenay.
The name of the town is an Indian word that means "Up here it is deep."
But great depth of water is not confined to Chicoutimi's immediate
vicinity for the river is as near bottomless as it well could be all the
way from there to the St. Lawrence.

An interesting stream with the same name as the town joins the Saguenay
close by. It makes a descent of about five hundred feet in seventeen
miles. Among the numerous carrying-places beside this turbulent river is
one known as _Portage de l'Enfant_, so called in commemoration of the
remarkable escape of an Indian child that was carried over the
neighboring falls. These falls are fifty feet high, yet the child was
rescued uninjured.

The source of the Saguenay is Lake St. John, into which drains a vast
network of lesser streams that abound with beautiful waterfalls. The
finest of these cataracts is probably the Ouiatchouan Falls which makes
a foaming descent of more than three hundred feet down a steep ledge.
All this section of country is thickly studded with lakes, and there is
the best of fishing, and much large game such as deer, bear, moose and
the wapiti. Perhaps nowhere else in the vast basin of the St. Lawrence
will the sportsman and the lover of the grand and beautiful in nature
find better reward for their toil.

A good deal of geological interest attaches to the rock formation of the
region; for the Laurentide range forms the backbone of the oldest
mountain chain on the globe. In the glacial period of our planet's
history, a cold salt sea similar to that between Labrador and Greenland
covered a great part of this Laurentian country to the depth of hundreds
of feet.

There is a peculiar geological interest also in the individuality of the
Saguenay. The stream occupies a tremendous chasm where occurred a fault
in the ancient Archan rock. Here a glacier made for itself a deeply
eroded bed, and when the ice melted, the sea filled the vast defile. At
its mouth the river is at least six hundred feet deeper than the St.
Lawrence, and the scenery along its lower course, for some sixty miles
is magnificent. The tides run very strong in this wide channel, and
sometimes attain a height of eighteen feet.

It is the custom of the steamboat to wait at Chicoutimi till advantage
can be taken of the ebb flow, and on my trip we did not start until
nearly noon. For a long time we went on amid scenery that was in no wise
remarkably striking. But at length the boat rounded Cape West and
proceeded to the head of Ha! Ha! Bay, a charming sheet of water about
two miles wide and seven long. Its name is supposed to be derived from
the laughing exclamations of the early French explorers, who sailed up
the Bay under the impression that they were following the main channel
of the river, and soon found farther progress barred. At the head of the
Bay is the picturesque village of St. Alphonse; and the sight of it was
the more welcome because usually on this river trip we had not a single
habitation in view.

As we continued southward the bordering hills were higher, and at the
waterside was a constant succession of precipices of solemn and
impressive grandeur, scantily enlivened by vegetation. The scenery
culminates at Capes Trinity and Eternity. These twin promontories soar
upward in almost perpendicular cliffs from the water's edge, and between
them a little bay opens inland. Cape Trinity gets its name from the
fact that it lifts its great mass in three successive heights. This
makes it suggestive of the steps of a mighty flight of stairs, and each
step is about six hundred feet high making a total of nearly two
thousand feet. It is of interest also to know that the water at the base
of the capes is said to be as deep as they are high. These stupendous
cliffs dwarf everything else of this nature to be found in the eastern
portion of the continent, and the bald eagle builds its nest in the
niches of the precipices secure from intrusion. Immense blocks of the
rock have fallen out, leaving areas of shadow and clinging overhanging
masses that are a terror and a fascination to the eye. Some years ago
there was a great fall of rock just as the steamer which loiters here
for the pleasure of the tourists had passed from under and blown its
whistle to arouse the echoes. "The echo came back and with it a part of
the mountain that astonished more than it delighted the lookers-on."

John Burroughs, in relating his impressions of Cape Eternity, says that
when the vessel was sailing close around the base of the precipice "One
of the boys of the steamer brought to the forward deck his hands full of
stones that the curious ones among the passengers might try how easy it
was to throw one ashore. 'Any girl ought to do it,' I said to myself.

"Seizing a stone, I cast it with vigor and confidence, and as much
expected to see it smite the rock as I expected to live. 'It is a good
while getting there,' I mused, as I watched its course. Down, down it
went--'It will ring on the granite in half a breath.' No, down into the
water, a little more than half way! 'Has my arm lost its cunning?' I
said, and tried again and again, but with like result. The eye was
completely at fault. There was a new standard of size before it to which
it failed to adjust itself. The rock is so enormous and towers so above
you that you get the impression it is much nearer than it actually is.
There is an astonishing discrepancy between what the eye reports and
what the hand finds out."

Bayard Taylor has spoken of the Saguenay as the "River of Death," and
there has been an inclination to describe it as silent and gloomy, and
so narrow and environed by dark cliffs that the sunshine rarely
penetrates to its sombre channel, and no breeze can reach its unruffled
waters. As a matter of fact it is usually a mile or more broad and the
light of heaven and the winds play over it as they do over other
streams. Nor are you inclined to melancholy as you sail its waters and
view the changing scene, unless you have brought your melancholy with
you.

The bordering region, however, with its stony mountains bulwarking the
river offers little encouragement to home seekers or even for grazing.
Many of the heights have been swept by fire recently enough to bear
witness to the fact by their bristling of charred tree-trunks still
standing, and their lack of vegetation. Much of the soil has been
burned, or has been washed away after losing the protection of the shade
and fibrous roots of the forest. The flinty slopes indeed seem never
likely to support a fine woodland in the future. Ordinarily the
devastation was begun by the lumberman and fire completed the ruin of
the once noble forest along the Saguenay. Wherever the white man goes
into the wilderness the havoc of fire seems to go with him. This was
illustrated by what was told me of the building of the railway from
Quebec to Lake St. John. It was a great expense, the rocks on the route
were so hard; yet it cost the public far more than the outlay of the
railway company; for the fires carelessly allowed to escape by the
workmen burned millions of dollars worth of forest.




XIII

THE ST. LAWRENCE IN WINTER


Above Quebec the river is icebound from early December until April.
Below Quebec there is ice in plenty, too; but it does not freeze hard
and fast from shore to shore. With the ebb and flow of every tide the
broken masses go surging now down, now up; and while navigation on the
lower river is not impossible, only one or two government boats continue
active. All other traffic is abandoned, and the ocean-going vessels do
not resume their trips much before the first of May; for there is a long
aftermath of winter in this great waterway. The river's quieter
portions, and the various streams and broad lakes that are tributary to
it freeze to a great thickness. The ice breaks up at different times in
different localities, so that the series of "ice-shoves" the St.
Lawrence experiences extends over several weeks. As the ice crowds along
down the channel it jams and piles up and often forms bergs of enormous
size. At no time is the aspect of the river wilder.

[Illustration: _Cape Eternity and Cape Trinity_]

I chose to make a pilgrimage to this northern waterway in February,
because I had a fancy that then I would find winter most
impressive--that all the accumulated snows of the preceding months would
be on view, and that frost and keen winds would be as rampant as they
are in the bitterest days of the season in Boston or New York. But the
valley of the St. Lawrence has not, after all, a climate so radically
different from that of our adjacent states as we are inclined to
imagine. Spells of soft weather in February are almost a certainty, and
even a January thaw is looked for with a good deal of confidence. But
the natives all affirm that winter does not relax its grip for good
until March seventeenth. I at first wondered why they named this date
with such exactness and assurance. When I asked for a reason they
mentioned that the seventeenth was St. Patrick's Day. So much warmth is
developed on the occasion that not even a Canadian winter can withstand
it.

The weather at Montreal at the time of my visit was decidedly mild.
There had been a day of rain immediately before which had carried off a
good deal of the snow, yet all the vehicles drawn by horses were still
on runners. Much of the natural accumulations of snow on the chief
business streets had been previously carted off, and the thaw had taken
most of the rest. What remained had been compacted by travel into ice,
but it was so dirty that traffic moved very laboriously. Many a load got
stranded on the bare tracks of the car lines, and if the struggle to get
off seemed at all doubtful a crowd would gather to watch the solving of
the problem. The spectacle was especially fascinating if a horse
attached to a sled showed its disapproval of the situation by kicking.

Except on the main thoroughfares the snow continued to be very
plentiful, and there were amazing heaps along the gutters, and in the
yards of residences, and in nooks about the buildings. Some of the
churches were half buried in the masses that had slid down from the
roofs. One effect of the warm spell was to bring out the frost in great
white patches on the thick walls of the houses of worship and other
stone structures. Perhaps the most interesting glimpses of the winter
city were to be had by going through the occasional archways that give
access from the business streets to little courts and areas in the rear.
The snow heaps there on earth and galleries and huddled roofs were sure
to be exceedingly picturesque.

I early sought the waterside to see how winter had changed the stream
opposite the city. Not an atom of its warm weather vivacity remained. It
was a vast vacancy of snowy ice, except for dark glades of rippling
water where the current was swiftest. The wharves which are so busy in
summer were deserted by all shipping and were cleared of much of their
ordinary fixtures to give free sweep to the ice-shoves. Yet many teams
were coming and going along shore, some bringing freight to or from the
cars on the railroad that skirts the wharves, others getting goods from
the great warehouses on the piers; and there was a long procession of
little one-horse sledges that were carrying surplus snow from the town
to dump it by the river borders.

A few weeks previous there had been a ten-days' ice carnival in the
city, and an ice palace had been built on the upland at the foot of the
bluff of Mount Royal. The Montreal ice palace is famed all over America,
and pictures of it appear in the papers everywhere. It is something so
unique and the idea of celebrating the pleasures of winter so charms the
fancy that there is a widespread desire to see the glittering
structure. Nevertheless the number of visitors it actually draws from
the States is comparatively small. The drift of humanity in winter is
toward a warmer climate, and people shrink from encountering the rigors
of a more northerly section than that to which they are accustomed, even
though they acknowledge theoretically that the steady, dry cold usually
characteristic of the St. Lawrence valley in winter is invigorating,
healthful and pleasurable.

The ice palace as a winter feature of Montreal has not proved a success
financially, and there is some doubt of its being erected in future. Its
crystal walls and aspiring towers and turrets cover a considerable area,
and both the size and the castle-like, medieval architecture are
impressive; but the cost of construction is too great for the patronage.
The blocks of ice used are enormous and weigh about five hundred pounds
each. They are handled with derricks, and are cemented together with a
mixture of snow and water. At night the building is lighted by
electricity, and on certain special occasions there are displays of
fireworks, and a battle takes place between a storming party and
defenders.

[Illustration: _The road up Mount Royal_]

The people of Montreal are by no means unanimous in approving of the
palace. Some object to it because they think it advertises the frigidity
of the region, and they fear possible visitors will be repelled rather
than attracted. They themselves make a brave claim that their winter is
not disturbingly severe or disagreeable, and I have no doubt that in
many ways they enjoy it. But I am persuaded from chance remarks made to
me that they find it rather tedious and at times decidedly harsher than
they relish. For instance, one lady told me how a stranger stopped her
on the street with the remark: "Excuse me, but your nose is frozen."
"And it was," she said, "but I was warned in time so that little harm
was done."

The city has numerous covered skating rinks in which ice sports are
enjoyed to perfection all winter. Both sexes resort to these rinks, and
the fancy dress carnivals afford a very attractive spectacle. Of the
various games played on the ice hockey is the favorite, and there is
much rivalry between the clubs of the different cities. A well-contested
match is a sight that is extremely graceful and interesting. Skating is
perhaps the amusement that has the most devotees, but tobogganing and
snowshoeing are also very popular. Montreal boasts of about twenty
snowshoe clubs, and as each club has its distinctive uniform of
bright-colored blanket, coat, and cowl, a procession of snowshoers on a
tramp presents a very gay and enlivening appearance.

Mount Royal is the winter playground of the people. They can take
advantage of the splendid sleighing on the long, easy grade of the road
that winds around the height through the woods; or they can put on
snowshoes and go climbing through the hollows and over the ridges and
along the bypaths; or they can resort to the magnificent toboggan slide,
well up toward the summit on the gentle southern slope. One may grant
that in the city itself the snow and cold constitute something of a
nuisance, but there is no question that on Mount Royal the crystalline
air and the clean omnipresent mantle of the snow, and the joy and warmth
of activity and lively sport are wholly delightful.

[Illustration: _Snowbound_]

To see the ideal St. Lawrence winter, however, the traveller must visit
Quebec. It is farther north than Montreal, is more steadily cold, and
gets more deeply buried in snow. The weather had taken a chill turn
while I was on my way thither, and when I arrived a bleak wind was
blowing that almost took me off my feet in the exposed places. But the
town was really adorable, it looked so genuinely yet snugly cold.
Everywhere was frost and snow--the place was enveloped in white, and
even the grim cliffs and battlements were half hidden. There was
beautiful sleighing, and the vehicles were generally fascinating in
their quaintness. They were low, clumsy and heavy, and the runners were
made out of planks set on edge and gracefully curved at the front and
shod with iron. The milk carts and shopkeepers' conveyances usually had
a step at the back where the driver stood.

For pleasure riding the favorite sleigh is what is called a "cariole."
It is of the same type that I have described and has sides rather more
than knee high. Wraps and fur robes are supplied in abundance, and the
finest robe in the outfit hangs loosely over the back, giving the
cariole a jaunty air of warmth and luxuriousness that is quite enticing.

The horses of the town are sure-footed beasts, and I could not but be
astonished at the alacrity with which they jogged down the steep
descents, often making a long slide at every footstep. I think the
people must be sure-footed, too; for the walks were covered with ice,
and it apparently was not considered necessary to sprinkle them with
ashes or sand. In places, however, rude steps had been cut in the ice on
the steeper walks, and I noticed that if the grade and slipperiness were
excessive the pedestrians often resorted to the streets.

Evidently the townsfolk on the whole enjoyed the winter; for I saw no
shivering discomfort, but much of brisk energy. Everyone seemed to be
prepared for the cold and ready to withstand its utmost rigors. That its
sharpness was often superlative was attested by the common habit of
wearing a fur hat, and very likely a fur coat, or at least a generous
fur collar.

There were marvellous accumulations of snow where it had drifted or been
shovelled into heaps, and some of the narrower streets would probably
have been filled to the tops of the buildings that lined them, had the
snow not been carted off. That curious little street, Sous le Cap, was a
weird sight, in spite of all the clearing that had been done. Snow was
clinging everywhere on roofs, stairways and rocks, and it piled up in
the street so that it was impossible to keep it entirely out of the
adjacent houses.

The rigor of winter was even more apparent when I climbed to the citadel
on the exposed summit of the bluff. The fortress was half buried, and
the approach to it was guarded against the drifts by a long snowshed.
Down below, the river was a mass of broken ice, and the water showed
only in occasional streaks and patches. In the quiet intervals between
the tides the ice is apt to freeze into an almost continuous mass, but
when the current is strong it is broken up again and swept up or down
the stream, whichever way the tide is setting.

Two stout ferryboats ply back and forth across the river and do much to
keep the ice moving. They follow the open lanes when they can, yet do
not hesitate to butt into the floes and crunch along through them. In
the wild winter storms the prevailing wind crowds the ice against the
Quebec shore, and then the ferryboats may be an hour or more in
crossing. Ordinarily, no trips are made between midnight and six in the
morning; but when the weather is cold a sharp watch is kept, and if the
ice shows signs of forming a permanent bridge the boats start out to
break it up. Only once in the last twenty years has the river here been
icebound. To quote the words of my informant: "The ice caught in
January and formed a bridge fifteen miles long that lasted the rest of
the winter. We walked, skated and drove all around on it, and held
carnivals out in mid-river."

Two or three important railroads have their Quebec terminal on the south
shore of the river, and such a blockade is so serious a matter that
every effort is made to keep the ice moving. The portion of the river
that flows north of the Isle of Orleans, however, is frozen over and
people drive back and forth between the mainland and the island at
various places for months.

The aspect of Quebec was satisfactorily wintry, but I wanted also to see
the outlying country, so I journeyed down the river to one of the rural
villages, and trudged for many miles along the drifted roadways. It was
storming and the wind drove the prickling sleet against my face, and
whirled it over the fields to pile it up in the lee of the hills or
other obstructions. The snow lay even with the tops of the fences. Never
before had I seen a region so buried; and yet I was told there was not
half as much snow this winter as usual, and that the recent thaw had
settled it about three feet.

[Illustration: _February in a country village_]

After each storm it is customary to go over the road with a scraper that
smooths the snow off, and then with a roller that packs it down hard.
The hardened trail is wide enough to allow teams to pass each other, but
woe betide the driver who gets off the rolled space. To prevent such
straying the more doubtful portions of the road are marked with spruce
saplings thrust in at intervals along the hardened portion.

It seemed as if the snow would linger till midsummer, but the spring
rains and warm winds that sweep through the valley carry it off like
magic. As soon as it softens travel is practically impossible, for the
horses at every footstep sink down almost out of sight. Most people then
either wait for a freeze, or, if the season is too far advanced to
expect such hardening, the men get out with shovels and open a rough way
through the worst places.

The storm I encountered did not appear to deter the people from going
about their work. They were sawing wood in their dooryards, piling sleds
with pulpwood by the roadside, and driving loads to the village. The
homes I passed were not very attractive. As a rule the houses were small
and their architecture was pretentious and tawdry. There was a fatal
desire to make a show, especially at the front, which was often painted
to imitate stone or brick and had a very ornamental door and
window-casings. It mattered not if the rest of the structure was
commonplace and even shabby, if only that deceptive front, which
deceived nobody, was sufficiently palatial. The only quiet, simple and
beautiful dwellings were the occasional stone houses that date far back
into the past, and which most likely are despised by the local public
for their lack of attractiveness. The surroundings of the houses were
usually quite devoid of the saving touch of grace that sheltering trees
would have lent them, and this bleakness of aspect is the more
regretable because it is unnecessary.

I did not have much luck in chatting with the people I met, for they
could rarely speak anything but French. Most of them are poor, and--poor
or rich--they are economical by habit and "live on the smell of an oil
rag," as one valley man informed me.

They probably have the most attenuated farms to be found on the face of
the earth. Some of the strips are hardly wider than the dwellings that
stand on them; but I could see fences that marked the boundary lines
sweeping far away up the slope to a fringe of spruce in the distance,
and extending in the other direction down the steep hill and across the
lowland to the river.

That the deep snows and the cold and the fierce storms of the winter
must have been frightful to the early explorers in a savage wilderness,
I could easily comprehend; but now, with assurance of food and shelter,
the season's ugly aspect is gone, and it offers to the traveller much
that is delightful. "No matter how cold it is," said one Canadian, "I
can work every day, and I feel in the mood for working, too. That's more
than the people can say who live in warmer regions where they don't have
a good snappy winter. I wouldn't want to exchange our climate for any
other; and yet, I tell you, it looks good in the spring when the frost
weakens its grip and the snow melts and we begin to see the brown of the
fields."

Certainly the St. Lawrence is one of the noblest and most interesting of
our great waterways, and a visit to it is well repaid in either summer
or winter. Best of all see it at both seasons, for only so can you feel
that you have a thorough knowledge of its charms.


Transcriber's Notes:

Hyphenated words have been normalized. Printer's punctuation errors have
been silently corrected. All else has been left as in the original
except were noted below.

Introductory Note--Typo corrected from indivuality to individuality.

Page 3--Typo corrected from poineers to pioneers.

Page 57--Typo corrected from frow to from.

Page 67--Typo corrected from litte to little.

Page 75--Typo corrected from fusilade to fusillade.

Page 85--Typo corrected from them to they.

Page 238--Typo corrected from is to it.


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[End of _The Picturesque St. Lawrence_ by Clifton Johnson]
