After passing Beauport, we were beset by troops of urchins, who stood in groups making polite bows to win attention and coin, or ran beside the carriage with the speed of trotting horses, lustily crying out, with extended hand, "un sou! un sou!"
They were miniature Falstaffs in figure, some not more than four or five years old, with dark skins and lustrous black eyes. It was amusing to see their vigorous but good-natured scrambles for a sou when cast among them, and the persevering race of the unsuccessful for the next expected piece of copper. Many a dollar is thus scattered and picked up by the road side to Montmorenci, during "the season," for the amusement of the passengers and the comfort of the habitans.
We left our barouche on the south side of the Montmorenci, and crossing, upon a bridge, the turbulent stream that rushes, leaping and foaming among broken rocks, toward the cascade 'ust below, we paid a sou each to a pretty French girl who guarded a gate opening to a winding pathway through the fields to the margin of the bank a little below the falls. The path is down a gentle slope for several rods, and at almost every step the picturesque scenery of the cascade assumes a new aspect.
These falls, though much higher than those of Niagara, have none of the grandeur of that great wonder. Our first thought here is, How beautiful, but when the eye and the ear are first impressed with the avalanche of waters at Niagara, the solemn thought is, How sublime and wonderful! When we visited the Montmorenci, a long drought had greatly diminished the volume of its waters, yet it exhibited a scene strikingly picturesque and pleasing. For two or three hundred yards the river is confined in a narrow limestone bed, whence it rushes with great velocity to the brink of the precipice, and leaps into a crescent-shaped bay of the St. Lawrence, more than two hundred feet below. There, at low tide, the bare rocks receive the flood, and send up clouds of spray a hundred feet or more, on which the rays of the evening sun often depict the beautiful bow. In front, cleaving the broad bosom of the St. Lawrence, is the Island of Orleans, a paradise of beauty in summer, and a place of much resort by the citizens of Quebec, particularly the English residents, who see in it much that resembles their "sweet Devonshire coast." Its length is nineteen miles, and its average breadth about five. A population of five thousand inhabit it, and its rich soil is thoroughly cultivated for the production of vegetables for the Quebec market. Beyond, on the right, is Point Levi, and up the St. Lawrence, glittering in the sun, lies Quebec. Grouping the beauties of the natural scenery, the historical associations, and the delights of a summer ride, a trip to Montmorenci is an event to be long remembered with pleasure. The sun was at meridian, and the mercury indicated ninety-