To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.
Silleri, Feb. 25.
Those who have heard no more of a Canadian winter than what regards
the intenseness of its cold, must suppose it a very joyless season:
'tis, I assure you, quite otherwise; there are indeed some days here of
the severity of which those who were never out of England can form no
conception; but those days seldom exceed a dozen in a whole winter,
nor do they come in succession; but at intermediate periods, as the
winds set in from the North-West; which, coming some hundred leagues,
from frozen lakes and rivers, over woods and mountains covered with
snow, would be insupportable, were it not for the furs with which the
country abounds, in such variety and plenty as to be within the reach
of all its inhabitants.
Thus defended, the British belles set the winter of Canada at
defiance; and the season of which you seem to entertain such terrible
ideas, is that of the utmost chearfulness and festivity.
But what particularly pleases me is, there is no place where women
are of such importance: not one of the sex, who has the least share of
attractions, is without a levee of beaux interceding for the honor of
attending her on some party, of which every day produces three or four.
I am just returned from one of the most agreable jaunts imagination
can paint, to the island of Orleans, by the falls of Montmorenci; the
latter is almost nine miles distant, across the great bason of Quebec;
but as we are obliged to reach it in winter by the waving line, our
direct road being intercepted by the inequalities of the ice, it is now
perhaps a third more. You will possibly suppose a ride of this kind
must want one of the greatest essentials to entertainment, that of
variety, and imagine it only one dull whirl over an unvaried plain of
snow: on the contrary, my dear, we pass hills and mountains of ice in
the trifling space of these few miles. The bason of Quebec is formed by
the conflux of the rivers St. Charles and Montmorenci with the great
river St. Lawrence, the rapidity of whose flood tide, as these rivers
are gradually seized by the frost, breaks up the ice, and drives it
back in heaps, till it forms ridges of transparent rock to an height
that is astonishing, and of a strength which bids defiance to the
utmost rage of the most furiously rushing tide.
This circumstance makes this little journey more pleasing than you
can possibly conceive: the serene blue sky above, the dazling
brightness of the sun, and the colors from the refraction of its rays
on the transparent part of these ridges of ice, the winding course
these oblige you to make, the sudden disappearing of a train of fifteen
or twenty carrioles, as these ridges intervene, which again discover
themselves on your rising to the top of the frozen mount, the
tremendous appearance both of the ascent and descent, which however are
not attended with the least danger; all together give a grandeur and
variety to the scene, which almost rise to enchantment.
Your dull foggy climate affords nothing that can give you the least
idea of our frost pieces in Canada; nor can you form any notion of our
amusements, of the agreableness of a covered carriole, with a sprightly
fellow, rendered more sprightly by the keen air and romantic scene
about him; to say nothing of the fair lady at his side.
Even an overturning has nothing alarming in it; you are laid gently
down on a soft bed of snow, without the least danger of any kind; and
an accident of this sort only gives a pretty fellow occasion to vary
the style of his civilities, and shew a greater degree of attention.
But it is almost time to come to Montmorenci: to avoid, however,
fatiguing you or myself, I shall refer the rest of our tour to another
letter, which will probably accompany this: my meaning is, that two
moderate letters are vastly better than one long one; in which
sentiment I know you agree with
Yours,
A. Fermor.