Grim and rocky and black-water'd as the demesne hereabout is, however,
you must not think genial humanity, and comfort, and good-living are not
to be met. Before I began this memorandum I made a first-rate breakfast
of sea-trout, finishing off with wild raspberries. I find smiles and
courtesy everywhere--physiognomies in general curiously like those in
the United States--(I was astonish'd to find the same resemblance all
through the province of Quebec.) In general the inhabitants of this
rugged country (Charlevoix, Chicoutimi and Tadousac counties, and lake
St. John region) a simple, hardy population, lumbering, trapping furs,
boating, fishing, berry-picking and a little farming. I was watching a
group of young boatmen eating their early dinner--nothing but an immense
loaf of bread, had apparently been the size of a bushel measure, from
which they cut chunks with a jack-knife. Must be a tremendous winter
country this, when the solid frost and ice fully set in.