No More Learning

We had still a distant view behind us of two or
three blue mountains in Vermont and New York. About nine o'clock in
the forenoon we reached St. John's, an old frontier post three hundred
and six miles from Boston, and twenty-four from Montreal. We now
discovered that we were in a foreign country, in a station-house of
another nation. This building was a barn-like structure, looking as if
it were the work of the villagers combined, like a log house in a new
settlement. My attention was caught by the double advertisements in
French and English fastened to its posts, by the formality of the
English, and the covert or open reference to their queen and the
British lion. No gentlemanly conductor appeared, none whom you would
know to be the conductor by his dress and demeanor; but ere long we
began to see here and there a solid, red-faced, burly-looking
Englishman, a little pursy perhaps, who made us ashamed of ourselves
and our thin and nervous countrymen,--a grandfatherly personage, at
home in his greatcoat, who looked as if he might be a stage
proprietor, certainly a railroad director, and knew, or had a right to
know, when the cars did start. Then there were two or three
pale-faced, black-eyed, loquacious Canadian-French gentlemen there,
shrugging their shoulders; pitted as if they had all had the
small-pox. In the meanwhile some soldiers, redcoats, belonging to the
barracks near by, were turned out to be drilled. At every important
point in our route the soldiers showed themselves ready for us; though
they were evidently rather raw recruits here, they manoeuvred far
better than our soldiers; yet, as usual, I heard some Yankees talk as
if they were no great shakes, and they had seen the Acton Blues
manoeuvre as well. The officers spoke sharply to them, and appeared
to be doing their part thoroughly. I heard one suddenly coming to the
rear, exclaim, "Michael Donouy, take his name! " though I could not see
what the latter did or omitted to do. It was whispered that Michael
Donouy would have to suffer for that. I heard some of our party
discussing the possibility of their driving these troops off the field
with their umbrellas. I thought that the Yankee, though undisciplined,
had this advantage at least, that he especially is a man who,
everywhere and under all circumstances, is fully resolved to better
his condition essentially, and therefore he could afford to be beaten
at first; while the virtue of the Irishman, and to a great extent the
Englishman, consists in merely maintaining his ground or condition.
The Canadians here, a rather poor-looking race, clad in gray homespun,
which gave them the appearance of being covered with dust, were riding
about in caleches and small one-horse carts called charettes. The
Yankees assumed that all the riders were racing, or at least
exhibiting the paces of their horses, and saluted them accordingly. We
saw but little of the village here, for nobody could tell us when the
cars would start; that was kept a profound secret, perhaps for
political reasons; and therefore we were tied to our seats. The
inhabitants of St. John's and vicinity are described by an English
traveler as "singularly unprepossessing," and before completing his
period he adds, "besides, they are generally very much disaffected to
the British crown. " I suspect that that "besides" should have been a
because.

At length, about noon, the cars began to roll towards La Prairie. The
whole distance of fifteen miles was over a remarkably level country,
resembling a Western prairie, with the mountains about Chambly visible
in the northeast. This novel but monotonous scenery was exciting. At
La Prairie we first took notice of the tinned roofs, but above all of
the St. Lawrence, which looked like a lake; in fact it is considerably
expanded here; it was nine miles across diagonally to Montreal. Mount
Royal in the rear of the city, and the island of St. Helen's opposite
to it, were now conspicuous. We could also see the Sault St. Louis
about five miles up the river, and the Sault Norman still farther
eastward. The former are described as the most considerable rapids in
the St. Lawrence; but we could see merely a gleam of light there as
from a cobweb in the sun. Soon the city of Montreal was discovered
with its tin roofs shining afar. Their reflections fell on the eye
like a clash of cymbals on the ear. Above all the church of Notre Dame
was conspicuous, and anon the Bonsecours market-house, occupying a
commanding position on the quay, in the rear of the shipping. This
city makes the more favorable impression from being approached by
water, and also being built of stone, a gray limestone found on the
island. Here, after traveling directly inland the whole breadth of New
England, we had struck upon a city's harbor,--it made on me the
impression of a seaport,--to which ships of six hundred tons can
ascend, and where vessels drawing fifteen feet lie close to the wharf,
five hundred and forty miles from the Gulf, the St. Lawrence being
here two miles wide. There was a great crowd assembled on the
ferry-boat wharf and on the quay to receive the Yankees, and flags of
all colors were streaming from the vessels to celebrate their arrival.
When the gun was fired, the gentry hurrahed again and again, and then
the Canadian caleche-drivers, who were most interested in the matter,
and who, I perceived, were separated from the former by a fence,
hurrahed their welcome; first the broadcloth, then the homespun.

It was early in the afternoon when we stepped ashore. With a single
companion, I soon found my way to the church of Notre Dame. I saw that
it was of great size and signified something. It is said to be the
largest ecclesiastical structure in North America, and can seat ten
thousand. It is two hundred and fifty-five and a half feet long, and
the groined ceiling is eighty feet above your head. The Catholic are
the only churches which I have seen worth remembering, which are not
almost wholly profane. I do not speak only of the rich and splendid
like this, but of the humblest of them as well. Coming from the
hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed aside the listed
door of this church, and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere
which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. There
sat one or two women who had stolen a moment from the concerns of the
day, as they were passing; but, if there had been fifty people there,
it would still have been the most solitary place imaginable. They did
not look up at us, nor did one regard another. We walked softly down
the broad aisle with our hats in our hands. Presently came in a troop
of Canadians, in their homespun, who had come to the city in the boat
with us, and one and all kneeled down in the aisle before the high
altar to their devotions, somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepare to lie
down, and there we left them. As if you were to catch some farmer's
sons from Marlborough, come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in
Concord meeting-house some Wednesday! Would there not soon be a mob
peeping in at the windows? It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests
and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the
significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a
church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are
capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this
sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink
ourselves even as oxen. I did not mind the pictures nor the candles,
whether tallow or tin. Those of the former which I looked at appeared
tawdry. It matters little to me whether the pictures are by a neophyte
of the Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was impressed by the
quiet, religious atmosphere of the place. It was a great cave in the
midst of a city; and what were the altars and the tinsel but the
sparkling stalactites, into which you entered in a moment, and where
the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and
profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day,
is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays,
hardly long enough for an airing, and then filled with a bustling
congregation,--a church where the priest is the least part, where you
do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be
heard. I am not sure but this Catholic religion would be an admirable
one if the priest were quite omitted. I think that I might go to
church myself some Monday, if I lived in a city where there was such a
one to go to. In Concord, to be sure, we do not need such. Our forests
are such a church, far grander and more sacred. We dare not leave
_our_ meeting-houses open for fear they would be profaned. Such a
cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, for instance, how long
would it be respected? for what purposes would it be entered, by such
baboons as we are? I think of its value not only to religion, but to
philosophy and to poetry; besides a reading-room, to have a
thinking-room in every city! Perchance the time will come when every
house even will have not only its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room, and
talking-room or parlor, but its thinking-room also, and the architects
will put it into their plans. Let it be furnished and ornamented with
whatever conduces to serious and creative thought. I should not object
to the holy water, or any other simple symbol, if it were consecrated
by the imagination of the worshipers.

I heard that some Yankees bet that the candles were not wax, but tin.
A European assured them that they were wax; but, inquiring of the
sexton, he was surprised to learn that they were tin filled with oil.
The church was too poor to afford wax. As for the Protestant churches,
here or elsewhere, they did not interest me, for it is only as caves
that churches interest me at all, and in that respect they were
inferior.

Montreal makes the impression of a larger city than you had expected
to find, though you may have heard that it contains nearly sixty
thousand inhabitants. In the newer parts, it appeared to be growing
fast like a small New York, and to be considerably Americanized. The
names of the squares reminded you of Paris,--the Champ de Mars, the
Place d'Armes, and others,--and you felt as if a French revolution
might break out any moment. Glimpses of Mount Royal rising behind the
town, and the names of some streets in that direction, make one think
of Edinburgh. That hill sets off this city wonderfully. I inquired at
a principal bookstore for books published in Montreal. They said that
there were none but school-books and the like; they got their books
from the States. From time to time we met a priest in the streets, for
they are distinguished by their dress, like the _civil_ police. Like
clergymen generally, with or without the gown, they made on us the
impression of effeminacy. We also met some Sisters of Charity, dressed
in black, with Shaker-shaped black bonnets and crosses, and cadaverous
faces, who looked as if they had almost cried their eyes out, their
complexions parboiled with scalding tears; insulting the daylight by
their presence, having taken an oath not to smile. By cadaverous I
mean that their faces were like the faces of those who have been dead
and buried for a year, and then untombed, with the life's grief upon
them, and yet, for some unaccountable reason, the process of decay
arrested.

"Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him
With the day's shame upon him. "

They waited demurely on the sidewalk while a truck laden with raisins
was driven in at the seminary of St. Sulpice, never once lifting their
eyes from the ground.

The soldier here, as everywhere in Canada, appeared to be put forward,
and by his best foot. They were in the proportion of the soldiers to
the laborers in an African ant-hill. The inhabitants evidently rely on
them in a great measure for music and entertainment. You would meet
with them pacing back and forth before some guard-house or
passage-way, guarding, regarding, and disregarding all kinds of law by
turns, apparently for the sake of the discipline to themselves, and
not because it was important to exclude anybody from entering that
way. They reminded me of the men who are paid for piling up bricks and
then throwing them down again. On every prominent ledge you could see
England's hands holding the Canadas, and I judged by the redness of
her knuckles that she would soon have to let go. In the rear of such a
guard-house, in a large graveled square or parade ground, called the
Champ de Mars, we saw a large body of soldiers being drilled, we being
as yet the only spectators. But they did not appear to notice us any
more than the devotees in the church, but were seemingly as
indifferent to fewness of spectators as the phenomena of nature are,
whatever they might have been thinking under their helmets of the
Yankees that were to come. Each man wore white kid gloves. It was one
of the most interesting sights which I saw in Canada. The problem
appeared to be how to smooth down all individual protuberances or
idiosyncrasies, and make a thousand men move as one man, animated by
one central will; and there was some approach to success. They obeyed
the signals of a commander who stood at a great distance, wand in
hand; and the precision, and promptness, and harmony of their
movements could not easily have been matched. The harmony was far more
remarkable than that of any choir or band, and obtained, no doubt, at
a greater cost. They made on me the impression, not of many
individuals, but of one vast centipede of a man, good for all sorts of
pulling down; and why not then for some kinds of building up? If men
could combine thus earnestly, and patiently, and harmoniously to some
really worthy end, what might they not accomplish? They now put their
hands, and partially perchance their heads together, and the result is
that they are the imperfect tools of an imperfect and tyrannical
government. But if they could put their hands and heads and hearts and
all together, such a cooperation and harmony would be the very end and
success for which government now exists in vain,--a government, as it
were, not only with tools, but stock to trade with.

I was obliged to frame some sentences that sounded like French in
order to deal with the market-women, who, for the most part, cannot
speak English. According to the guidebook the relative population of
this city stands nearly thus: two fifths are French-Canadian; nearly
one fifth British-Canadian; one and a half fifths English, Irish, and
Scotch; somewhat less than one half fifth Germans, United States
people, and others. I saw nothing like pie for sale, and no good cake
to put in my bundle, such as you can easily find in our towns, but
plenty of fair-looking apples, for which Montreal Island is
celebrated, and also pears cheaper and I thought better than ours, and
peaches, which, though they were probably brought from the South, were
as cheap as they commonly are with us. So imperative is the law of
demand and supply that, as I have been told, the market of Montreal is
sometimes supplied with green apples from the State of New York some
weeks even before they are ripe in the latter place. I saw here the
spruce wax which the Canadians chew, done up in little silvered
papers, a penny a roll; also a small and shriveled fruit which they
called _cerises_, mixed with many little stems, somewhat like raisins,
but I soon returned what I had bought, finding them rather insipid,
only putting a sample in my pocket. Since my return, I find on
comparison that it is the fruit of the sweet viburnum (_Viburnum
Lentago_), which with us rarely holds on till it is ripe.

I stood on the deck of the steamer John Munn, late in the afternoon,
when the second and third ferry-boats arrived from La Prairie,
bringing the remainder of the Yankees. I never saw so many caleches,
cabs, charettes, and similar vehicles collected before, and doubt if
New York could easily furnish more. The handsome and substantial stone
quay which stretches a mile along the riverside and protects the
street from the ice was thronged with the citizens who had turned out
on foot and in carriages to welcome or to behold the Yankees. It was
interesting to see the caleche-drivers dash up and down the slope of
the quay with their active little horses. They drive much faster than
in our cities. I have been told that some of them come nine miles into
the city every morning and return every night, without changing their
horses during the day. In the midst of the crowd of carts, I observed
one deep one loaded with sheep with their legs tied together, and
their bodies piled one upon another, as if the driver had forgotten
that they were sheep and not yet mutton,--a sight, I trust, peculiar
to Canada, though I fear that it is not.




CHAPTER II

QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI


About six o'clock we started for Quebec, one hundred and eighty miles
distant by the river; gliding past Longueuil and Boucherville on the
right, and Pointe aux Trembles, "so called from having been originally
covered with aspens," and Bout de l'Isle, or the end of the island, on
the left. I repeat these names not merely for want of more substantial
facts to record, but because they sounded singularly poetic to my
ears. There certainly was no lie in them. They suggested that some
simple, and, perchance, heroic human life might have transpired there.
There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the
mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a
string of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word.
The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
Inexpressibly beautiful appears the recognition by man of the least
natural fact, and the allying his life to it. All the world
reiterating this slender truth, that aspens once grew there; and the
swift inference is that men were there to see them. And so it would be
with the names of our native and neighboring villages, if we had not
profaned them.

The daylight now failed us, and we went below; but I endeavored to
console myself for being obliged to make this voyage by night, by
thinking that I did not lose a great deal, the shores being low and
rather unattractive, and that the river itself was much the more
interesting object. I heard something in the night about the boat
being at William Henry, Three Rivers, and in the Richelieu Rapids, but
I was still where I had been when I lost sight of Pointe aux Trembles.
To hear a man who has been waked up at midnight in the cabin of a
steamboat inquiring, "Waiter, where are we now? " is as if, at any
moment of the earth's revolution round the sun, or of the system round
its centre, one were to raise himself up and inquire of one of the
deck hands, "Where are we now? "

I went on deck at daybreak, when we were thirty or forty miles above
Quebec. The banks were now higher and more interesting. There was an
"uninterrupted succession of whitewashed cottages," on each side of
the river. This is what every traveler tells. But it is not to be
taken as an evidence of the populousness of the country in general,
hardly even of the river-banks. They have presented a similar
appearance for a hundred years. The Swedish traveler and naturalist
Kalm, who descended the river in 1749, says, "It could really be
called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, which is
a distance of more than one hundred and eighty miles; for the
farmhouses are never above five arpents, and sometimes but three
asunder, a few places excepted. " Even in 1684 Hontan said that the
houses were not more than a gunshot apart at most. Ere long we passed
Cape Rouge, eight miles above Quebec, the mouth of the Chaudiere on
the opposite or south side; New Liverpool Cove with its lumber-rafts
and some shipping; then Sillery and Wolfe's Cove and the Heights of
Abraham on the north, with now a view of Cape Diamond, and the citadel
in front. The approach to Quebec was very imposing. It was about six
o'clock in the morning when we arrived. There is but a single street
under the cliff on the south side of the cape, which was made by
blasting the rocks and filling up the river. Three-story houses did
not rise more than one fifth or one sixth the way up the nearly
perpendicular rock, whose summit is three hundred and forty-five feet
above the water. We saw, as we glided past, the sign on the side of
the precipice, part way up, pointing to the spot where Montgomery was
killed in 1775. Formerly it was the custom for those who went to
Quebec for the first time to be ducked, or else pay a fine. Not even
the Governor-General escaped. But we were too many to be ducked, even
if the custom had not been abolished. [1]

Here we were, in the harbor of Quebec, still three hundred and sixty
miles from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in a basin two miles across,
where the greatest depth is twenty-eight fathoms, and though the water
is fresh, the tide rises seventeen to twenty-four feet,--a harbor
"large and deep enough," says a British traveler, "to hold the English
navy. " I may as well state that, in 1844, the county of Quebec
contained about forty-five thousand inhabitants (the city and suburbs
having about forty-three thousand),--about twenty-eight thousand being
Canadians of French origin; eight thousand British; over seven
thousand natives of Ireland; one thousand five hundred natives of
England; the rest Scotch and others. Thirty-six thousand belong to the
Church of Rome.

Separating ourselves from the crowd, we walked up a narrow street,
thence ascended by some wooden steps, called the Break-neck Stairs,
into another steep, narrow, and zigzag street, blasted through the
rock, which last led through a low, massive stone portal, called
Prescott Gate, the principal thoroughfare into the Upper Town. This
passage was defended by cannon, with a guard-house over it, a sentinel
at his post, and other soldiers at hand ready to relieve him. I rubbed
my eyes to be sure that I was in the Nineteenth Century, and was not
entering one of those portals which sometimes adorn the frontispieces
of new editions of old black-letter volumes. I thought it would be a
good place to read Froissart's Chronicles. It was such a reminiscence
of the Middle Ages as Scott's novels. Men apparently dwelt there for
security! Peace be unto them! As if the inhabitants of New York were
to go over to Castle William to live! What a place it must be to bring
up children! Being safe through the gate, we naturally took the street
which was steepest, and after a few turns found ourselves on the
Durham Terrace, a wooden platform on the site of the old castle of St.
Louis, still one hundred and fifteen feet below the summit of the
citadel, overlooking the Lower Town, the wharf where we had landed,
the harbor, the Isle of Orleans, and the river and surrounding country
to a great distance. It was literally a _splendid_ view. We could see,
six or seven miles distant, in the northeast, an indentation in the
lofty shore of the northern channel, apparently on one side of the
harbor, which marked the mouth of the Montmorenci, whose celebrated
fall was only a few rods in the rear.

At a shoe-shop, whither we were directed for this purpose, we got some
of our American money changed into English. I found that American hard
money would have answered as well, excepting cents, which fell very
fast before their pennies, it taking two of the former to make one of
the latter, and often the penny, which had cost us two cents, did us
the service of one cent only. Moreover, our robust cents were
compelled to meet on even terms a crew of vile half-penny tokens, and
Bungtown coppers, which had more brass in their composition, and so
perchance made their way in the world. Wishing to get into the
citadel, we were directed to the Jesuits' Barracks,--a good part of
the public buildings here are barracks,--to get a pass of the Town
Major. We did not heed the sentries at the gate, nor did they us, and
what under the sun they were placed there for, unless to hinder a free
circulation of the air, was not apparent. There we saw soldiers eating
their breakfasts in their mess-room, from bare wooden tables in camp
fashion. We were continually meeting with soldiers in the streets,
carrying funny little tin pails of all shapes, even semicircular, as
if made to pack conveniently. I supposed that they contained their
dinners,--so many slices of bread and butter to each, perchance.
Sometimes they were carrying some kind of military chest on a sort of
bier or hand-barrow, with a springy, undulating, military step, all
passengers giving way to them, even the charette-drivers stopping for
them to pass,--as if the battle were being lost from an inadequate
supply of powder. There was a regiment of Highlanders, and, as I
understood, of Royal Irish, in the city; and by this time there was a
regiment of Yankees also. I had already observed, looking up even from
the water, the head and shoulders of some General Poniatowsky, with an
enormous cocked hat and gun, peering over the roof of a house, away up
where the chimney caps commonly are with us, as it were a caricature
of war and military awfulness; but I had not gone far up St. Louis
Street before my riddle was solved, by the apparition of a real live
Highlander under a cocked hat, and with his knees out, standing and
marching sentinel on the ramparts, between St. Louis and St. John's
Gate. (It must be a holy war that is waged there. ) We stood close by
without fear and looked at him. His legs were somewhat tanned, and the
hair had begun to grow on them, as some of our wise men predict that
it will in such cases, but I did not think they were remarkable in any
respect. Notwithstanding all his warlike gear, when I inquired of him
the way to the Plains of Abraham, he could not answer me without
betraying some bashfulness through his broad Scotch. Soon after, we
passed another of these creatures standing sentry at the St. Louis
Gate, who let us go by without shooting us, or even demanding the
countersign. We then began to go through the gate, which was so thick
and tunnel-like as to remind me of those lines in Claudian's "Old Man
of Verona," about the getting out of the gate being the greater part
of a journey;--as you might imagine yourself crawling through an
architectural vignette _at the end_ of a black-letter volume. We were
then reminded that we had been in a fortress, from which we emerged by
numerous zigzags in a ditch-like road, going a considerable distance
to advance a few rods, where they could have shot us two or three
times over, if their minds had been disposed as their guns were. The
greatest, or rather the most prominent, part of this city was
constructed with the design to offer the deadest resistance to leaden
and iron missiles that might be cast against it. But it is a
remarkable meteorological and psychological fact, that it is rarely
known to rain lead with much violence, except on places so
constructed. Keeping on about a mile we came to the Plains of
Abraham,--for having got through with the Saints, we came next to the
Patriarchs. Here the Highland regiment was being reviewed, while the
band stood on one side and played--methinks it was _La Claire
Fontaine_, the national air of the Canadian French. This is the site
where a real battle once took place, to commemorate which they have
had a sham fight here almost every day since.
The Highlanders
manoeuvred very well, and if the precision of their movements was
less remarkable, they did not appear so stiffly erect as the English
or Royal Irish, but had a more elastic and graceful gait, like a herd
of their own red deer, or as if accustomed to stepping down the sides
of mountains. But they made a sad impression on the whole, for it was
obvious that all true manhood was in the process of being drilled out
of them. I have no doubt that soldiers well drilled are, as a class,
peculiarly destitute of originality and independence. The officers
appeared like men dressed above their condition. It is impossible to
give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His
natural foe is the government that drills him. What would any
philanthropist who felt an interest in these men's welfare naturally
do, but first of all teach them so to respect themselves that they
could not be hired for this work, whatever might be the consequences
to this government or that? --not drill a few, but educate all. I
observed one older man among them, gray as a wharf-rat, and supple as
the devil, marching lock-step with the rest, who would have to pay for
that elastic gait.

We returned to the citadel along the heights, plucking such flowers as
grew there. There was an abundance of succory still in blossom,
broad-leaved goldenrod, buttercups, thorn bushes, Canada thistles, and
ivy, on the very summit of Cape Diamond. I also found the bladder
campion in the neighborhood. We there enjoyed an extensive view, which
I will describe in another place. Our pass, which stated that all the
rules were "to be strictly enforced," as if they were determined to
keep up the semblance of reality to the last gasp, opened to us the
Dalhousie Gate, and we were conducted over the citadel by a
bare-legged Highlander in cocked hat and full regimentals. He told us
that he had been here about three years, and had formerly been
stationed at Gibraltar. As if his regiment, having perchance been
nestled amid the rocks of Edinburgh Castle, must flit from rock to
rock thenceforth over the earth's surface, like a bald eagle, or other
bird of prey, from eyrie to eyrie. As we were going out, we met the
Yankees coming in, in a body headed by a red-coated officer called the
commandant, and escorted by many citizens, both English and
French-Canadian. I therefore immediately fell into the procession, and
went round the citadel again with more intelligent guides, carrying,
as before, all my effects with me. Seeing that nobody walked with the
red-coated commandant, I attached myself to him, and though I was not
what is called well-dressed, he did not know whether to repel me or
not, for I talked like one who was not aware of any deficiency in that
respect. Probably there was not one among all the Yankees who went to
Canada this time, who was not more splendidly dressed than I was. It
would have been a poor story if I had not enjoyed some distinction. I
had on my "bad-weather clothes," like Olaf Trygvesson the Northman,
when he went to the Thing in England, where, by the way, he won his
bride. As we stood by the thirty-two-pounder on the summit of Cape
Diamond, which is fired three times a day, the commandant told me that
it would carry to the Isle of Orleans, four miles distant, and that no
hostile vessel could come round the island. I now saw the subterranean
or rather "casemated" barracks of the soldiers, which I had not
noticed before, though I might have walked over them. They had very
narrow windows, serving as loop-holes for musketry, and small iron
chimneys rising above the ground. There we saw the soldiers at home
and in an undress, splitting wood,--I looked to see whether with
swords or axes,--and in various ways endeavoring to realize that their
nation was now at peace with this part of the world. A part of each
regiment, chiefly officers, are allowed to marry. A grandfatherly,
would-be witty Englishman could give a Yankee whom he was patronizing
no reason for the bare knees of the Highlanders, other than oddity.
The rock within the citadel is a little convex, so that shells falling
on it would roll toward the circumference, where the barracks of the
soldiers and officers are; it has been proposed, therefore, to make it
slightly concave, so that they may roll into the centre, where they
would be comparatively harmless; and it is estimated that to do this
would cost twenty thousand pounds sterling. It may be well to remember
this when I build my next house, and have the roof "all correct" for
bomb-shells.

At mid-afternoon we made haste down Sault-au-Matelot Street, towards
the Falls of Montmorenci, about eight miles down the St. Lawrence, on
the north side, leaving the further examination of Quebec till our
return. On our way, we saw men in the streets sawing logs pit-fashion,
and afterward, with a common wood-saw and horse, cutting the planks
into squares for paving the streets. This looked very shiftless,
especially in a country abounding in water-power, and reminded me that
I was no longer in Yankeeland. I found, on inquiry, that the excuse
for this was that labor was so cheap; and I thought, with some pain,
how cheap men are here! I have since learned that the English traveler
Warburton remarked, soon after landing at Quebec, that everything was
cheap there but men. That must be the difference between going thither
from New and from Old England. I had already observed the dogs
harnessed to their little milk-carts, which contain a single large
can, lying asleep in the gutters regardless of the horses, while they
rested from their labors, at different stages of the ascent in the
Upper Town. I was surprised at the regular and extensive use made of
these animals for drawing not only milk but groceries, wood, etc. It
reminded me that the dog commonly is not put to any use. Cats catch
mice; but dogs only worry the cats. Kalm, a hundred years ago, saw
sledges here for ladies to ride in, drawn by a pair of dogs. He says,
"A middle-sized dog is sufficient to draw a single person, when the
roads are good;" and he was told by old people that horses were very
scarce in their youth, and almost all the land-carriage was then
effected by dogs. They made me think of the Esquimaux, who, in fact,
are the next people on the north. Charlevoix says that the first
horses were introduced in 1665.

We crossed Dorchester Bridge, over the St. Charles, the little river
in which Cartier, the discoverer of the St. Lawrence, put his ships,
and spent the winter of 1535, and found ourselves on an excellent
macadamized road, called Le Chemin de Beauport. We had left Concord
Wednesday morning, and we endeavored to realize that now, Friday
morning, we were taking a walk in Canada, in the Seigniory of
Beauport, a foreign country, which a few days before had seemed
almost as far off as England and France. Instead of rambling to
Flint's Pond or the Sudbury meadows, we found ourselves, after being a
little detained in cars and steamboats,--after spending half a night
at Burlington, and half a day at Montreal,--taking a walk down the
bank of the St. Lawrence to the Falls of Montmorenci and elsewhere.
Well, I thought to myself, here I am in a foreign country; let me have
my eyes about me, and take it all in. It already looked and felt a
good deal colder than it had in New England, as we might have expected
it would. I realized fully that I was four degrees nearer the pole,
and shuddered at the thought; and I wondered if it were possible that
the peaches might not be all gone when I returned. It was an
atmosphere that made me think of the fur-trade, which is so
interesting a department in Canada, for I had for all head-covering a
thin palm-leaf hat without lining, that cost twenty-five cents, and
over my coat one of those unspeakably cheap, as well as thin, brown
linen sacks of the Oak Hall pattern, which every summer appear all
over New England, thick as the leaves upon the trees. It was a
thoroughly Yankee costume, which some of my fellow-travelers wore in
the cars to save their coats a dusting. I wore mine, at first, because
it looked better than the coat it covered, and last, because two coats
were warmer than one, though one was thin and dirty. I never wear my
best coat on a journey, though perchance I could show a certificate to
prove that I have a more costly one, at least, at home, if that were
all that a gentleman required. It is not wise for a traveler to go
dressed. I should no more think of it than of putting on a clean
dicky and blacking my shoes to go a-fishing; as if you were going out
to dine, when, in fact, the genuine traveler is going out to work
hard, and fare harder,--to eat a crust by the wayside whenever he can
get it. Honest traveling is about as dirty work as you can do, and a
man needs a pair of overalls for it. As for blacking my shoes in such
a case, I should as soon think of blacking my face. I carry a piece of
tallow to preserve the leather and keep out the water; that's all; and
many an officious shoe-black, who carried off my shoes when I was
slumbering, mistaking me for a gentleman, has had occasion to repent
it before he produced a gloss on them.

My pack, in fact, was soon made, for I keep a short list of those
articles which, from frequent experience, I have found indispensable
to the foot-traveler; and, when I am about to start, I have only to
consult that, to be sure that nothing is omitted, and, what is more
important, nothing superfluous inserted. Most of my fellow-travelers
carried carpet-bags, or valises. Sometimes one had two or three
ponderous yellow valises in his clutch, at each hitch of the cars, as
if we were going to have another rush for seats; and when there was a
rush in earnest,--and there were not a few,--I would see my man in the
crowd, with two or three affectionate lusty fellows along each side of
his arm, between his shoulder and his valises, which last held them
tight to his back, like the nut on the end of a screw. I could not
help asking in my mind, What so great cause for showing Canada to
those valises, when perhaps your very nieces had to stay at home for
want of an escort? I should have liked to be present when the
custom-house officer came aboard of him, and asked him to declare upon
his honor if he had anything but wearing apparel in them. Even the
elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of
traveling is to travel without baggage. After considerable reflection
and experience, I have concluded that the best bag for the
foot-traveler is made with a handkerchief, or, if he study
appearances, a piece of stiff brown paper, well tied up, with a fresh
piece within to put outside when the first is torn. That is good for
both town and country, and none will know but you are carrying home
the silk for a new gown for your wife, when it may be a dirty shirt. A
bundle which you can carry literally under your arm, and which will
shrink and swell with its contents. I never found the carpet-bag of
equal capacity which was not a bundle of itself. We styled ourselves
the Knights of the Umbrella and the Bundle; for, wherever we went,
whether to Notre Dame or Mount Royal or the Champ de Mars, to the Town
Major's or the Bishop's Palace, to the Citadel, with a bare-legged
Highlander for our escort, or to the Plains of Abraham, to dinner or
to bed, the umbrella and the bundle went with us; for we wished to be
ready to digress at any moment. We made it our home nowhere in
particular, but everywhere where our umbrella and bundle were. It
would have been an amusing circumstance, if the mayor of one of those
cities had politely asked us where we were staying. We could only have
answered that we were staying with his honor for the time being. I was
amused when, after our return, some green ones inquired if we found it
easy to get accommodated; as if we went abroad to get accommodated,
when we can get that at home.

We met with many charettes, bringing wood and stone to the city. The
most ordinary-looking horses traveled faster than ours, or perhaps
they were ordinary-looking because, as I am told, the Canadians do not
use the curry-comb. Moreover, it is said that on the approach of
winter their horses acquire an increased quantity of hair, to protect
them from the cold. If this be true, some of our horses would make you
think winter were approaching, even in midsummer. We soon began to see
women and girls at work in the fields, digging potatoes alone, or
bundling up the grain which the men cut. They appeared in rude health,
with a great deal of color in their cheeks, and, if their occupation
had made them coarse, it impressed me as better in its effects than
making shirts at fourpence apiece, or doing nothing at all--unless it
be chewing slate-pencils--with still smaller results. They were much
more agreeable objects, with their great broad-brimmed hats and
flowing dresses, than the men and boys. We afterwards saw them doing
various other kinds of work; indeed, I thought that we saw more women
at work out of doors than men. On our return, we observed in this town
a girl, with Indian boots nearly two feet high, taking the harness off
a dog.

The purity and transparency of the atmosphere were wonderful. When we
had been walking an hour, we were surprised, on turning round, to see
how near the city, with its glittering tin roofs, still looked. A
village ten miles off did not appear to be more than three or four. I
was convinced that you could see objects distinctly there much
farther than here. It is true the villages are of a dazzling white,
but the dazzle is to be referred, perhaps, to the transparency of the
atmosphere as much as to the whitewash.

We were now fairly in the village of Beauport, though there was still
but one road. The houses stood close upon this, without any front
yards, and at an angle with it, as if they had dropped down, being set
with more reference to the road which the sun travels. It being about
sundown, and the falls not far off, we began to look round for a
lodging, for we preferred to put up at a private house, that we might
see more of the inhabitants. We inquired first at the most
promising-looking houses,--if, indeed, any were promising. When we
knocked, they shouted some French word for come in, perhaps _Entrez_,
and we asked for a lodging in English; but we found, unexpectedly,
that they spoke French only. Then we went along and tried another
house, being generally saluted by a rush of two or three little curs,
which readily distinguished a foreigner, and which we were prepared
now to hear bark in French. Our first question would be "Parlez-vous
Anglais? " but the invariable answer was "Non, monsieur;" and we soon
found that the inhabitants were exclusively French Canadians, and
nobody spoke English at all, any more than in France; that, in fact,
we were in a foreign country, where the inhabitants uttered not one
familiar sound to us. Then we tried by turns to talk French with them,
in which we succeeded sometimes pretty well, but for the most part
pretty ill. "Pouvez-vous nous donner un lit cette nuit? " we would
ask, and then they would answer with French volubility, so that we
could catch only a word here and there. We could understand the women
and children generally better than the men, and they us; and thus,
after a while, we would learn that they had no more beds than they
used.

So we were compelled to inquire, "Y a-t-il une maison publique ici? "
(_auberge_ we should have said, perhaps, for they seemed never to have
heard of the other), and they answered at length that there was no
tavern, unless we could get lodgings at the mill, _le moulin_, which
we had passed; or they would direct us to a grocery, and almost every
house had a small grocery at one end of it. We called on the public
notary or village lawyer, but he had no more beds nor English than the
rest. At one house there was so good a misunderstanding at once
established through the politeness of all parties, that we were
encouraged to walk in and sit down, and ask for a glass of water; and
having drank their water, we thought it was as good as to have tasted
their salt. When our host and his wife spoke of their poor
accommodations, meaning for themselves, we assured them that they were
good enough, for we thought that they were only apologizing for the
poorness of the accommodations they were about to offer us, and we did
not discover our mistake till they took us up a ladder into a loft,
and showed to our eyes what they had been laboring in vain to
communicate to our brains through our ears, that they had but that one
apartment with its few beds for the whole family. We made our _adieus_
forthwith, and with gravity, perceiving the literal signification of
that word. We were finally taken in at a sort of public house, whose
master worked for Patterson, the proprietor of the extensive sawmills
driven by a portion of the Montmorenci stolen from the fall, whose
roar we now heard. We here talked, or murdered, French all the
evening, with the master of the house and his family, and probably had
a more amusing time than if we had completely understood one another.
At length they showed us to a bed in their best chamber, very high to
get into, with a low wooden rail to it. It had no cotton sheets, but
coarse, home-made, dark-colored linen ones. Afterward, we had to do
with sheets still coarser than these, and nearly the color of our
blankets. There was a large open buffet loaded with crockery in one
corner of the room, as if to display their wealth to travelers, and
pictures of Scripture scenes, French, Italian, and Spanish, hung
around. Our hostess came back directly to inquire if we would have
brandy for breakfast. The next morning, when I asked their names, she
took down the temperance pledges of herself and husband and children,
which were hanging against the wall. They were Jean Baptiste Binet and
his wife, Genevieve Binet. Jean Baptiste is the sobriquet of the
French Canadians.

After breakfast we proceeded to the fall, which was within half a
mile, and at this distance its rustling sound, like the wind among the
leaves, filled all the air. We were disappointed to find that we were
in some measure shut out from the west side of the fall by the private
grounds and fences of Patterson, who appropriates not only a part of
the water for his mill, but a still larger part of the prospect, so
that we were obliged to trespass. This gentleman's mansion-house and
grounds were formerly occupied by the Duke of Kent, father to Queen
Victoria. It appeared to me in bad taste for an individual, though he
were the father of Queen Victoria, to obtrude himself with his land
titles, or at least his fences, on so remarkable a natural phenomenon,
which should, in every sense, belong to mankind. Some falls should
even be kept sacred from the intrusion of mills and factories, as
water privileges in another than the millwright's sense. This small
river falls perpendicularly nearly two hundred and fifty feet at one
pitch. The St. Lawrence falls only one hundred and sixty-four feet at
Niagara. It is a very simple and noble fall, and leaves nothing to be
desired; but the most that I could say of it would only have the force
of one other testimony to assure the reader that it is there. We
looked directly down on it from the point of a projecting rock, and
saw far below us, on a low promontory, the grass kept fresh and green
by the perpetual drizzle, looking like moss. The rock is a kind of
slate, in the crevices of which grew ferns and goldenrods. The
prevailing trees on the shores were spruce and arbor-vitae,--the latter
very large and now full of fruit,--also aspens, alders, and the
mountain-ash with its berries. Every emigrant who arrives in this
country by way of the St. Lawrence, as he opens a point of the Isle of
Orleans, sees the Montmorenci tumbling into the Great River thus
magnificently in a vast white sheet, making its contribution with
emphasis. Roberval's pilot, Jean Alphonse, saw this fall thus, and
described it, in 1542. It is a splendid introduction to the scenery of
Quebec. Instead of an artificial fountain in its square, Quebec has
this magnificent natural waterfall, to adorn one side of its harbor.
Within the mouth of the chasm below, which can be entered only at
ebb-tide, we had a grand view at once of Quebec and of the fall. Kalm
says that the noise of the fall is sometimes heard at Quebec, about
eight miles distant, and is a sign of a northeast wind. The side of
this chasm, of soft and crumbling slate too steep to climb, was among
the memorable features of the scene. In the winter of 1829 the frozen
spray of the fall, descending on the ice of the St. Lawrence, made a
hill one hundred and twenty-six feet high. It is an annual phenomenon
which some think may help explain the formation of glaciers.

In the vicinity of the fall we began to notice what looked like our
red-fruited thorn bushes, grown to the size of ordinary apple trees,
very common, and full of large red or yellow fruit, which the
inhabitants called _pommettes_, but I did not learn that they were put
to any use.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Hierosme Lalemant says in 1648, in his Relation, he being
Superior: "All those who come to New France know well enough the
mountain of Notre Dame, because the pilots and sailors, being arrived
at that part of the Great River which is opposite to those high
mountains, baptize ordinarily for sport the new passengers, if they do
not turn aside by some present the inundation of this baptism which
one makes flow plentifully on their heads. "




CHAPTER III

ST. ANNE


By the middle of the forenoon, though it was a rainy day, we were once
more on our way down the north bank of the St. Lawrence, in a
northeasterly direction, toward the Falls of St. Anne, which are about
thirty miles from Quebec. The settled, more level, and fertile portion
of Canada East may be described rudely as a triangle, with its apex
slanting toward the northeast, about one hundred miles wide at its
base, and from two to three or even four hundred miles long, if you
reckon its narrow northeastern extremity; it being the immediate
valley of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, rising by a single or
by successive terraces toward the mountains on either hand. Though the
words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and
unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored
portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the
river, which one of those syllables would more than cover. The banks
of the St. Lawrence are rather low from Montreal to the Richelieu
Rapids, about forty miles above Quebec. Thence they rise gradually to
Cape Diamond, or Quebec. Where we now were, eight miles northeast of
Quebec, the mountains which form the northern side of this triangle
were only five or six miles distant from the river, gradually
departing farther and farther from it, on the west, till they reach
the Ottawa, and making haste to meet it on the east, at Cape
Tourmente, now in plain sight about twenty miles distant. So that we
were traveling in a very narrow and sharp triangle between the
mountains and the river, tilted up toward the mountains on the north,
never losing sight of our great fellow-traveler on our right.
According to Bouchette's Topographical Description of the Canadas, we
were in the Seigniory of the Cote de Beaupre, in the county of
Montmorenci, and the district of Quebec,--in that part of Canada which
was the first to be settled, and where the face of the country and the
population have undergone the least change from the beginning, where
the influence of the States and of Europe is least felt, and the
inhabitants see little or nothing of the world over the walls of
Quebec. This Seigniory was granted in 1636, and is now the property of
the Seminary of Quebec. It is the most mountainous one in the
province. There are some half a dozen parishes in it, each containing
a church, parsonage-house, gristmill, and several sawmills. We were
now in the most westerly parish, called Ange Gardien, or the Guardian
Angel, which is bounded on the west by the Montmorenci. The north bank
of the St. Lawrence here is formed on a grand scale. It slopes gently,
either directly from the shore or from the edge of an interval, till,
at the distance of about a mile, it attains the height of four or five
hundred feet. The single road runs along the side of the slope two or
three hundred feet above the river at first, and from a quarter of a
mile to a mile distant from it, and affords fine views of the north
channel, which is about a mile wide, and of the beautiful Isle of
Orleans, about twenty miles long by five wide, where grow the best
apples and plums in the Quebec district.

Though there was but this single road, it was a continuous village for
as far as we walked this day and the next, or about thirty miles down
the river, the houses being as near together all the way as in the
middle of one of our smallest straggling country villages, and we
could never tell by their number when we were on the skirts of a
parish, for the road never ran through the fields or woods. We were
told that it was just six miles from one parish church to another. I
thought that we saw every house in Ange Gardien. Therefore, as it was
a muddy day, we never got out of the mud, nor out of the village,
unless we got over the fence; then, indeed, if it was on the north
side, we were out of the civilized world. There were sometimes a few
more houses near the church, it is true, but we had only to go a
quarter of a mile from the road, to the top of the bank, to find
ourselves on the verge of the uninhabited, and, for the most part,
unexplored wilderness stretching toward Hudson's Bay. The farms
accordingly were extremely long and narrow, each having a frontage on
the river. Bouchette accounts for this peculiar manner of laying out a
village by referring to "the social character of the Canadian peasant,
who is singularly fond of neighborhood," also to the advantage arising
from a concentration of strength in Indian times. Each farm, called
_terre_, he says, is, in nine cases out of ten, three arpents wide by
thirty deep, that is, very nearly thirty-five by three hundred and
forty-nine of our rods; sometimes one half arpent by thirty, or one to
sixty; sometimes, in fact, a few yards by half a mile. Of course it
costs more for fences. A remarkable difference between the Canadian
and the New England character appears from the fact that, in 1745, the
French government were obliged to pass a law forbidding the farmers or
_censitaires_ building on land less than one and a half arpents front
by thirty or forty deep, under a certain penalty, in order to compel
emigration, and bring the seigneur's estates all under cultivation;
and it is thought that they have now less reluctance to leave the
paternal roof than formerly, "removing beyond the sight of the parish
spire, or the sound of the parish bell. " But I find that in the
previous or seventeenth century, the complaint, often renewed, was of
a totally opposite character, namely, that the inhabitants dispersed
and exposed themselves to the Iroquois. Accordingly, about 1664, the
king was obliged to order that "they should make no more clearings
except one next to another, and that they should reduce their parishes
to the form of the parishes in France as much as possible. " The
Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of
adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and
danger, than ever the New England colonist went, and led them, though
not to clear and colonize the wilderness, yet to range over it as
_coureurs de bois_, or runners of the woods, or, as Hontan prefers to
call them, _coureurs de risques_, runners of risks; to say nothing of
their enterprising priesthood; and Charlevoix thinks that if the
authorities had taken the right steps to prevent the youth from
ranging the woods (_de courir les bois_), they would have had an
excellent militia to fight the Indians and English.

The road in this clayey-looking soil was exceedingly muddy in
consequence of the night's rain. We met an old woman directing her
dog, which was harnessed to a little cart, to the least muddy part of
it. It was a beggarly sight. But harnessed to the cart as he was, we
heard him barking after we had passed, though we looked anywhere but
to the cart to see where the dog was that barked. The houses commonly
fronted the south, whatever angle they might make with the road; and
frequently they had no door nor cheerful window on the road side. Half
the time they stood fifteen to forty rods from the road, and there was
no very obvious passage to them, so that you would suppose that there
must be another road running by them. They were of stone, rather
coarsely mortared, but neatly whitewashed, almost invariably one story
high and long in proportion to their height, with a shingled roof, the
shingles being pointed, for ornament, at the eaves, like the pickets
of a fence, and also one row halfway up the roof. The gables sometimes
projected a foot or two at the ridge-pole only. Yet they were very
humble and unpretending dwellings. They commonly had the date of their
erection on them. The windows opened in the middle, like blinds, and
were frequently provided with solid shutters. Sometimes, when we
walked along the back side of a house which stood near the road, we
observed stout stakes leaning against it, by which the shutters, now
pushed half open, were fastened at night; within, the houses were
neatly ceiled with wood not painted. The oven was commonly out of
doors, built of stone and mortar, frequently on a raised platform of
planks. The cellar was often on the opposite side of the road, in
front of or behind the houses, looking like an ice-house with us, with
a lattice door for summer. The very few mechanics whom we met had an
old-Bettyish look, in their aprons and _bonnets rouges_ like fools'
caps. The men wore commonly the same _bonnet rouge_, or red woolen or
worsted cap, or sometimes blue or gray, looking to us as if they had
got up with their night-caps on, and, in fact, I afterwards found that
they had. Their clothes were of the cloth of the country, _etoffe du
pays_, gray or some other plain color. The women looked stout, with
gowns that stood out stiffly, also, for the most part, apparently of
some home-made stuff. We also saw some specimens of the more
characteristic winter dress of the Canadian, and I have since
frequently detected him in New England by his coarse gray homespun
capote and picturesque red sash, and his well-furred cap, made to
protect his ears against the severity of his climate.

It drizzled all day, so that the roads did not improve. We began now
to meet with wooden crosses frequently, by the roadside, about a dozen
feet high, often old and toppling down, sometimes standing in a square
wooden platform, sometimes in a pile of stones, with a little niche
containing a picture of the Virgin and Child, or of Christ alone,
sometimes with a string of beads, and covered with a piece of glass to
keep out the rain, with the words, _Pour la Vierge_, or INRI, on them.