CHAPTER X.
TOBACCO OFFERINGS.
1808.
It was a beautiful moonlight evening in August. A shadowy haze lingered over the river, which glistened and sparkled in the moonlight. The Chief and several members of his family were seated on the beach in front of the Wigwam listening to the Honorable Joseph Papineau, who, with his son, Louis Joseph, had come up in a canoe to see the falls. The former had recently purchased from Bishop Laval the unsettled seigniory of Petit Nation, and had erected an unpretentious cottage, which he occupied during the summer months.
HON. LOUIS JOSEPH PAPINEAU AND MADAME PAPINEAU.
From Morgan's "Types of Canadian Women" (copyright, 1903), by permission.
"It was a lovely vision," said Mr. Papineau, who had just performed the feat of canoeing to the foot of the Chaudiere Falls for the first time. "On our return we climbed the rugged cliff on the south side, and never shall I forget the panorama that spread out before us. The sun, sinking slowly behind the Laurentian hills, had clothed himself with a robe of splendor. The long reflections lay soft on the waters of the river below. The clouds of ascending mist from the Chaudiere took a thousand shades of color as the western sky faded slowly from crimson into gold and from gold to green and gray, and finally displayed dark shapes, out of which imagination might well have formed a thousand monsters.*
* Louis Joseph, afterwards known as the Demosthenes of Canada, and who almost succeeded in making Canada a Republic, with himself as President, was evidently much impressed with the scene, which he described as follows: "Le soleil etait pret decendre sous l'horison, la mureille tout limpide etait d'une transparence vivre, tout penetree de lumiere vaguement prismatiseé."
"As we watched the gathering shadows my thoughts went back two hundred years, to the time when Champlain went on his first trip up the 'Riviere des Algoumequins,' as he called it. About two years before he took the trip he sent Nicholas de Vignan, a young Frenchman, up the river with some friendly Indians, and Nicholas had returned with the marvellous story that he had reached the North Sea. He said that the journey could be made in a few days. He also gave an account of having seen the wreck of an English ship.