frontier; a narrow road, choked with snow, led them through a
wood, in which patches were occasionally cleared on either side
to admit the construction of a few log-huts, round which a brood
of ragged children, a starved pig, and a few half-broken rustic
implements, formed an accompaniment more suited to an Irish
landscape, than to the thriving scenes we had just quitted. The
Canadian peasant is still the same unsophisticated animal whom
we may suppose to have been imported by Jacques Carrier. The
sharp unchangeable lineaments of the French countenance, set off
with a blue or red night-cap, over which is drawn the hood of a
grey capote, fashioned like a monk’s cowl, a red worsted girdle,
hair tied in a greasy leather queue, brown moccasins of
undressed hide, and a short pipe in his mouth, give undeniable
testimony of the presence of Jean Baptiste. His horse seems to
have been equally solicitous to shame neither his progenitors
nor his owner, by any mixture with a foreign race, but exhibits
the same relationship to the horses, as his rider to the
subjects of Louis XIII. Now, too, the frequent cross by the road
side, thick-studded with all the implements of crucifixional
torture, begins to indicate a catholic country: distorted
virgins and ghastly saints decorate each inn room, while the
light spires of the parish church, covered with plates of tin,
glitter across the snowy plain.
[Illustration: _Raft on the St. Lawrence, Cape Sante._]
“At La Prairie we crossed the ice to Montreal, whose isolated
mountain forms a conspicuous object at the distance of some
leagues. From thence to Quebec, the road follows the course of
the St. Lawrence, whose banks present a succession of villages,
many of them delightfully situated; but all form and feature
were absorbed in the snowy deluge, which now deepened every
league; add to which, the sleigh-track, by frequently running on
the bed of the river, placed us below prospect of every kind. We
found the inns neat, and the people attentive; French politesse
began to be contrasted with American bluntness. It is curious to
observe that this characteristic of the Americans, which so
frequently offends the polished feelings of English travellers,
is exactly what was formerly objected by the French to
ourselves. The ‘rudesse’ of the English character was long a
standing jest with our refined neighbours; but we have now, it
seems, so far shaken off this odious remnant of uncourtly
habits, as to regard it with true French horror in our
trans-Atlantic cousins.
“It was Sunday when we arrived at St. Anne’s; mass was just
finished, and above a hundred sleighs were rapidly dispersing
themselves up the neighbouring heights, and across the bed of
the river, to the adjacent villages. The common country sleigh
is a clumsy box-shaped machine, raised at both ends, perhaps not
greatly unlike the old heroic car. It holds two persons, with
the driver, who stands before them. One horse is commonly
sufficient, but two are used in posting, when the leader is
attached by cords, tandem-wise, and left to use his own
discretion, without the restraint of rein, or impulse of whip.
Should, however, the latter stimulus become indispensable, the
driver jumps from the sleigh, runs forward, applies his
pack-thread lash, and regains his seat without any hazard from
extraordinary increase of impetus. The runners of these sleighs
are formed of two slips of wood, so low that the shafts collect
the snow into a succession of wavy hillocks, properly christened
‘cahots,’ for they almost dislocate your limbs five thousand
times in a day’s journey. An attempt was once made to correct
this evil, by prohibiting all _low runners_, as they are called,
from coming within a certain distance of Quebec; meaning thereby
to force the country people into the use of high runners in the
American fashion. Jean Baptiste, however, sturdily and
effectually resisted this heretical innovation, by halting with
his produce without the limits, and thus compelling the
townspeople to come to him to make their purchases.
“The markets, both of Montreal and Quebec, exhibit several
hundred market sleighs daily. They differ from the pleasure or
travelling sleigh, in having no sides; that is, they consist
merely of a plank bottom, with a kind of railing. Hay and wood
seem the staple commodities at this season, both of which are
immoderately dear, especially at Quebec; even through the
States, the common charge for one horse’s hay for a night was a
dollar. Provisions are brought to market frozen, in which state
they are preserved during the winter; cod-fish is brought from
Boston, a land-carriage of 500 miles, and then sells at a
reasonable rate, the American commonly speculating on a cargo of
smuggled goods back, to make up his profit; a kind of trade
extremely brisk betwixt the frontier and Montreal.
“As we approached Quebec, snow lay to the depth of six feet;
from the heights of Abraham, the eye rested upon what seemed an
immense lake of milk; all smaller irregularities of ground,
fences, boundaries, and copse woods, had disappeared; the tops
of villages, and scattered farm-houses, with here and there dark
lines of pine-wood, and occasionally the mast of some ice-locked
schooner, marking the bed of the Charles river, were the only
objects peering about it. A range of mountains, sweeping round
from west to north, until it meets the St. Lawrence, bounds the
horizon; no herald of spring had yet approached this dreary
outpost of civilization; we had observed a few blue thrushes in
the neighbourhood of Albany, but none had yet reached Canada;
two only of the feathered tribe brave the winter of this
inclement region—the cosmopolite crow, and the snow-bird, a
small white bird, reported to feed upon snow, because it is not
very clear what else it can find.
“It would be acting unfairly to Quebec, to describe it as I
found it on my arrival, choked with ice and snow, which one day
flooded the streets with a profusion of dirty kennels, and the
next cased them with a sheet of glass. Cloth or carpet boots,
galoshes, with spikes to their heels, iron pointed walking
sticks, are the defensive weapons perpetually in employ on these
occasions. The direction of the streets too, which are most of
them built up a precipice, greatly facilitates any inclination
one may entertain for tumbling or neck-breaking.
“The Falls of Montmorency are formed by a little river of that
name, near its junction with the St. Lawrence, about five miles
north of Quebec. They have a peculiar interest in winter, from
the immense cone of ice formed at their foot, which was
unimpaired when I visited them, in the second week of April.
After winding up a short but steep ascent, the road crosses a
wooden bridge, beneath which the Montmorency rushes betwixt its
dark grey rocks, and precipitates itself in a broken torrent
down a wooded glen on the right. It is not until you have wound
round the edge of this glen, which is done by quitting the road
at the bridge-foot, that you obtain a view of the Falls; nor was
their effect lessened by this approach. A partial thaw,
succeeded by a frost, had spread a silvery brightness over the
waste of snow. Every twig and branch of the surrounding
pine-trees, every waving shrub and briar, was encased in
crystal, and glittering to the sun-beams like the diamond forest
of some northern elf-land. You are now on the edge of a
precipice, to which the Fall itself, a perpendicular of 220
feet, seems diminutive; it is not until you descend, and
approach its foot, that the whole majesty of the scene becomes
apparent. The breadth of the torrent is about fifty feet; the
waters, from their prodigious descent, seem snowy-white with
foam, and enveloped in a light drapery of gauzy mist. The cone
appears about a hundred feet in height, mathematically regular
in shape, with its base extending nearly all across the stream;
its sides are not so steep, but that ladies have ascended to the
top of it; the interior is hollow. I regret to add that a mill
is constructing on this river, which will, by diverting the
stream, destroy this imperial sport of nature; or, at least,
reduce it to the degradation of submitting to be played off at
the miller’s discretion, like a Versailles fountain.
[Illustration: _Scene from the Summit of the Fall of Montmorency._]
[Illustration: _Montmorency Bridge._]
“Towards the end of April, the townspeople begin, according to a
law of the province, to break up the ice and snow from before
their doors; and by the first week in May the streets are
tolerably clear. The intermediate state, as may be supposed, is
a perfect chaos, through which the stumbling pedestrian, like
the arch-fiend of old—
‘Pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps.’
Meanwhile, the landscape begins to exchange its snowy mantle for
a russet brown. A few wild-fowl and woodcocks, with some small
birds, cautiously make their appearance; the sheltered bottoms
of the pine-woods throw out the earliest flowers; the St.
Lawrence and Charles rivers become gradually disburthened of
ice, and enlivened by the gliding sail; still, however, the foot
of spring seems lingering; the mists, exhaled by the warmth of
the sun, frequently encounter the keen north-west, and are again
precipitated in heavy snow showers; snow still blocks up the
roads, and fills the dells and ditches, sheltered from the
influence of the sun, thus preserving the gloomy aspect of
winter through the month of May.
“The town, or rather city, of Quebec, is built on the northern
extremity of a narrow strip of high land, which follows the
course of the St. Lawrence, for several miles, to its confluence
with the Charles. The basis of this height is a dark slate rock,
of which most of the buildings in the town are constructed. Cape
Diamond terminates the promontory, with a bold precipice towards
the St. Lawrence, to which it is nearly perpendicular, at the
height of 320 feet. It derives its name from the crystals of
quartz found in it, which are so abundant, that, after a shower,
the ground glitters with them. The lower town is built round the
foot of these heights, without the fortifications, which, with
the upper town, occupy their crest in bleak preeminence: the
former, snug and dirty, is the abode of thriving commerce, and
of most of the lower classes employed about the navy; the
latter, cold and lofty, is the seat of government, and principal
residence of the military; and claims, in consequence, that kind
of superiority which some heads have been said to assert over
the inglorious belly. To speak the truth, neither has much to
boast on the score either of beauty or convenience.
“Among the principal buildings, the government-house, or Castle
of St. Louis, may take precedence, being a thin blue building,
which seems quivering, like a theatrical side-scene, on the
verge of the precipice, towards the St. Lawrence; its front
resembles that of a respectable gentleman’s house in England;
the interior contains comfortable family apartments. For
occasions of public festivity there is another building, on the
opposite side of the court-yard, much resembling a decayed gaol.
The furniture is inherited and paid for by each successive
governor. The grand entrance to the chateau is flanked on one
side by this grim mouldering pile, and on the other by the
stables, with their appropriate dunghills. There is a small
garden on the bank of the river, commanding, as does the chateau
itself, an interesting view of the opposite shores of the St.
Lawrence. These rise boldly precipitous, clothed with pine and
cedar groves, and studded with white villages and detached
farms; beyond which the eye reposes on successive chains of
wooded mountains, fading blue in the distant horizon; meanwhile,
the river below is spreading broadly towards the north, until it
meets and divides round the Isle of Orleans.
“In front of the chateau is an open space of ground, with great
capabilities of being converted into a handsome square; but at
this season, a formidable barrier of bog-land is all that it
presents to the bewildered pedestrian, who endeavours vainly to
steer for the castle gate. On one side of it stands the
protestant cathedral church, an unfinished building, much more
than large enough for the congregation usually assembled in it.
In style and arrangement it resembles a London parochial church,
and has nothing about it reproachable with earthly beauty. There
is a good organ, but mute for want of an organist; and as there
is no choir, the heavy flatness of the service amply secures the
English church from all danger of being crowded with the
overflowings of its neighbour, the catholic cathedral, in which
are still displayed, with no inconsiderable degree of splendour,
the enticing ceremonies of the Roman worship. I was present at
the service on Easter Sunday; a train of not less than fifty
stoled priests and choristers surrounded the tapered altar; the
bishop officiated in _plenis pontificalibus_, nor lacked the
mitre, ‘precious and aurophrygiate;’ while the pealing organ,
incense rolling from silver censers, and kneeling crowds
thronging the triple aisles, presented a spectacle on which few
are rigid enough, either in belief or unbelief, to look with
absolute indifference. A lofty pile of gingerbread cakes,
ornamented with tinsel, was carried to the bishop to receive his
blessing, and a sprinkling of holy water, after which they were
distributed among the people, who received them with most devout
eagerness. These cakes I understood to be the pious offering of
some devotee, more rich than wise, who certainly adopted a
somewhat ludicrous expedient—
‘To bribe the rage of ill-requited heaven,’
with gingerbread.
[Illustration: _Prescott Gate, Quebec._]
[Illustration: _View from the Citadel,_
Quebec.]
“In catholic countries there are few public buildings, either
for use or ornament, but are in some way connected with
religion, and most frequently with charity. There are several
charitable catholic institutions in Quebec: the principal of
these is the Hôtel-Dieu, founded in 1637 by the Duchess
d’Aiguillon, (sister to Cardinal Richelieu,) for the poor sick.
The establishment consists of a superior and thirty-six nuns.
The General Hospital is a similar institution, consisting of a
superior and forty-three nuns, founded by St. Vallier, bishop of
Quebec, in 1693, for “Poor Sick Mendicants.” It stands about a
mile from the town, in a pleasant meadow, watered by the
Charles. The style of building is simple, and well suited to the
purposes of the establishment, consisting only of “such plain
roofs as piety could raise.” The present superior is a lady of
Irish extraction, her age apparently bordering on thirty. In
this conventual seclusion, (devoted to what might well seem to
the mind of a delicate female the most disgusting duties of
humanity) she exhibits that easy elegance, and softened
cheerfulness of manner, so often affected and rarely attained by
the many votaries who dress their looks and carriage in “the
glass of fashion.” She conducted us, with the greatest
politeness, through every part of the building, which, as well
as the “Hôtel Dieu,” in point of order, neatness, and
arrangement, seems singularly adapted to the comfort and
recovery of the unfortunate beings to whose reception they are
consecrated. Their funds I understood to be small, and managed
with strict economy. They receive a small sum annually from
government, in addition to the revenue arising from their domain
lands. There is no distinction in the admission of catholic or
protestant; the hand of charity has spread a couch for each in
his infirmities. Both houses have a small pharmacopœia in charge
of a sister instructed in medicine. The several duties of
tending the sick by night, cooking, &c. are distributed by
rotation. Employment is thus equally secured to all, and the
first evil of cankering thought effectually prevented. Good
humour and contented cheerfulness seem to be no strangers to
these “veiled votaresses;” seem! nay, perhaps are; for, without
ascribing any miraculous effect to the devotion of a cloister,
it is no unreasonable supposition, that in an establishment of
this kind, the duties and occupations of which prevent seclusion
“from stagnating into apathy, or thought from fretting itself
into peevishness,” a greater degree of tranquillity, (and this
is happiness,) may possibly be obtained, than commonly falls to
the lot of those who drudge through the ordinary callings, or
weary themselves with the common enjoyments of society. Grave
men have doubted whether the purposes of these institutions
might not be better answered by our common hospital
establishments; and have even indulged themselves in a sneer at
the idea of young men being attended in sickness by nuns! On the
question, generally, it may be observed, that few (who have any
knowledge of the system of common hospitals) can be at a loss to
appreciate the difference betwixt the tender solicitude with
which charity smooths, for conscience’ sake, the bed of
suffering, and the heartless grudging attendance which hospital
nurses usually inflict upon their victims. If the action of the
mind produce a sensible effect on the frame, particularly in
sickness, this is no immaterial circumstance in a medical point
of view. Even when the hour of human aid is past, it is,
perhaps, still something that the last earthly object should be
a face of sympathy, and the last duties of humanity be paid with
a semblance of affection. For those who dedicate themselves to
this ministry, some apology may be urged to such as admit
motives as, at least, an extenuating circumstance in the
consideration of error. The moral critics, perhaps, who are
foremost to condemn their practice as superstitious, revolt less
from the superstition, than from the self-sacrifice it requires.
Let the lash of satire fall mercilessly on mere bigots, wherever
they are found: but against the spirit, which, abjuring the
pleasures, devotes itself to the most painful duties of life,
what argument can be directed which may not be left for its
refutation to the prayers and blessings of the poor? The most
objectionable part of the institution seems to be the committing
of insane persons, of both sexes, to the charge of females: the
answer is, that there is no other asylum for them; the blame
therefore attaches to the police of the country; for it is
evident, that women are very inadequate to the charge of such
patients as require coercive treatment, particularly men.”
The Ursuline Convent, founded by Madame de la Peltrie, in 1639, for the
education of female children, stands within the city. It has, both in
its interior decoration, and the dress of its inhabitants, a greater
appearance of wealth than the “General Hospital,” and “Hôtel Dieu.”
Among the ornaments of the chapel, we were particularly directed to the
skull and bones of a missionary, who had been murdered by the savages
for attempting their conversion; it is perhaps doubtful, considering the
general indifference of the Indians on matters of religious controversy,
whether this was the real and sole offence by which he won the crown of
martyrdom. These nuns have generally about 200 little girls under their
care; but I was sorry to observe their education bought with their
health—not one of them but had a pallid, sickly appearance, arising
probably from much confinement, during a long winter, in an atmosphere
highly heated with stoves, joined to the salt unwholesome diet,
generally used by the Canadians.
[Illustration: _Wolfe’s Cove._]
The Seminary is a collegiate institution, for the gratuitous instruction
of the catholic youth of Canada. The number of scholars is commonly
about 200. The expenses of professors, teaching, &c. are defrayed by the
revenue arising from the seignorial domains belonging to the
establishment. The course of studies here qualifies for ordination.
There is a small museum, or “cabinet de physique,” which seems in a
growing condition; it contains, besides natural curiosities, electrical
apparatus, telescopes, and other instruments of science. The library is
somewhat too theological; there is a small hall attached to it, in which
I perceived our Common Prayer Books, Testaments, &c. in company with
many divines, as well catholic as protestant, Bayle, and a few
travellers and philosophers, but the greater part theologians. The old
palace, besides the chambers for the Council, and House of Assembly,
contains a good public library; the nature of the collection may be
defined generally as the reverse of that of the seminary library. There
is a good assortment of historical works, of a standard quality, and of
travels; but no classics, probably because none of the inhabitants
affect to read them. A library is also on the eve of being established
by the officers of the staff and garrison; but the society of Quebec is
generally on too limited a scale, and too exclusively military or
commercial, to foster any considerable spirit of literature or science.
An attempt was made, during Sir G. Prevost’s administration, to
establish a society on the plan of the Royal Institution, but it fell to
the ground for want of a sufficiency of efficient members, eleven being
the supposed necessary quantum to begin with; nor is this seeming
scarcity surprising, when we consider that the short Canadian summer is
appropriated to business, and that during the tedious winter, the men
are never tired of dinners, nor the ladies of dancing.
There are some peculiar and interesting features in the neighbourhood of
Quebec. The lofty banks of the St. Lawrence, from Cape Diamond to Cape
Rouge, are composed of clay-slate, generally of a dark colour, sometimes
of a dull red, whence the name of “Cape Rouge.” The bed of the river is
of the same crumbling stone; and being triturated by time and the
elements, gives its sands a close resemblance, both in colour and
consistency, to smith’s filings. Bare, however, as they are of soil,
these perpendicular cliffs are everywhere clothed with a luxuriant
verdure of shrubs and trees, whose roots, wreathing themselves round
barren rocks, seem to woo from the charity of the heavens the nutriment
denied them by a niggard parent.
About two miles above Quebec, a break in the magnificent line of cliffs
forms the little recess, called Wolfe’s Cove; a steep pathway leads up
the heights to the Plains of Abraham; traces of field-works are still
visible on the turf, and the stone is pointed out on which the hero
expired. The cove is at present appropriated to the reception of lumber,
which comes down the river from the States and Upper Province, in rafts,
which frequently cover the surface of half an acre; when the wind is
favourable they spread ten or twelve square sails, at other times they
are polled down; the men who navigate them build small wooden houses on
them, and thus, transported with their families, poultry, and frequently
cattle, form a complete floating village. A great proportion of the
timber is brought from Lake Champlain, and the trade is almost wholly in
the hands of the Americans.
A second crescent-like recess, about a mile from Wolfe’s Cove, conceals
the little village of Sillori. Nothing can be more romantic than the
seclusion of this charming spot. The river road to it turns round the
foot of gigantic cliffs, which seem interposed betwixt it and the
world’s turmoil. The heights which encircle it are deeply wooded to
their summits, and retire sufficiently from the river to leave a
pleasant meadow and hop-ground round the village, consisting of about
half-a-dozen neat white houses, one of which is an inn. On the river’s
edge stands the ruin of an old religious house, built by French
missionaries, for the purpose of preaching to the Huron tribes, who then
inhabited this neighbourhood. There is now no trace of these
missionaries, or of their labours, except in the little village of
Loretto, which contains the only surviving relics of the once powerful
Huron nation; so efficaciously have disease and gunpowder seconded the
converting zeal of Europeans. Besides the road which winds under the
cliffs, Sillori has two leading to Quebec through the woods. These woods
cover the greater part of the country betwixt the St. Foi road and the
river, offering all the luxury of shade and sylvan loveliness to the few
disposed to accept it. I say the few, for the fashionables of Quebec
commonly prefer making a kind of Rotten-row of the Plains of Abraham,
round which they parade with the periodical uniformity of blind horses
in a mill.