After witnessing so much of the grand and gloomy, I was glad to retrace my course to a less dreary country. My last view of Mount Washington and its lordly companions was the most beautiful. The sun was near his setting, and the whole sky was covered with a glow of richest yellow and crimson, while to the eastward hung two immense copper-colored clouds just touching the outline of the mountains; and through the hazy atmosphere, the mountains themselves looked cloud-like, but with more of the bright blue of heaven upon them. In the extensive middle distance faded away wood-crowned hills; and in the foreground reposed an exquisite little farm, with the husbandman’s happy abode, almost hidden by groups of elms; and the simple figures, only a few paces off, of a little girl sitting on a stone, with a bunch of summer flowers in her hand, and a basket of berries and a dog at her side. One more yearning gaze upon the dear old mountains, and I resumed my pilgrimage towards the north.
CHAPTER X.
Montreal.
Montreal, June.
With some things in Montreal I have been pleased, but with others a good deal dissatisfied. The appearance which it presents from every point of view is imposing in the extreme. Its numerous church towers and extensive blocks of stores, its extensive shipping and noble stone wharves, combine to give one an idea of great wealth and liberality. On first riding to my hotel I was struck with the cleanliness of its streets, and, on being shown to my room, I was convinced that the hotel itself (Donegana’s) was of the first water. The city abounds in public buildings, which are usually built of limestone, and it extends along the river St. Lawrence about three miles. The streets, in the older parts of the town, are as picturesque and narrow as those of the more ancient cities of the Old World, but in the modern portions they are quite regular and comfortable. The principal street is Notre Dame, which always presents, on a pleasant clay, a gay, and elegant appearance.
Generally speaking, its churches are below mediocrity, but it has one architectural lion worth mentioning—the Catholic cathedral. It faces a square called Place d’Armes, and presents an imposing appearance. It is built of stone, and said to be after the Norman-Gothic order of architecture; but I should think it a mixture of a dozen dis-orders. Its extreme length is 225 feet, breadth 135, and its height 72 feet. It also has two towers, which measure 220 feet to their summit. The windows in these towers are closed with coarse boards, and yet it cost $400,000. The ground floor is covered with pews capable of seating 8000 people, while the aisles and galleries might hold 2000 more. The galleries are supported by wooden pillars, which reminded me of a New York barber’s sign. The interior has a naked and doleful appearance; the large window above the altar is wretchedly painted; the altar itself is loaded with gewgaws; and of the many paintings which meet you in every direction there is not one for which I would pay ten dollars. The organ resembles a bird-house, and the music perpetrated there every day in the year would jar upon the ear of even an American Indian. And when it is remembered that this church was built by one of the wealthiest corporations on the Continent, it is utterly impossible to entertain a feeling of charity towards the founders thereof.
The population of Montreal is now estimated at forty thousand, one-half of whom are Roman Catholics, one fourth Protestants, and the remainder nothing in particular. By this statement it will be readily seen that the establishments of the Catholics must be the most abundant. Nunneries are consequently quite numerous, some of them well endowed, and, to those who have a passion for such affairs, must be exceedingly interesting.
But I wish to mention one or two additional specimens of architecture. The market of Montreal is built of stone, located near the river, and remarkably spacious and convenient in all its arrangements. It eclipses anything of the kind that we can boast of in the States. The only monument of any note in the city is a Doric column, surmounted with a statue, and erected in honor of Lord Nelson. The entire column is seventy feet high, and gives an air of elegance to that portion of Notre Dame where it stands. On the four sides of the pedestal are pictorial representations, in alto relievo, representing Nelson in some of his memorable battles. It was erected by the British inhabitants of Montreal at a cost of near six thousand dollars.
One of the most striking peculiarities of this city is the fact that everybody has to live, walk and sleep at the point of a bayonet. Military quarters are stationed in various portions of the city, and soldiers meet you at every corner, marching to and fro, invariably puffed up with ignorance and vanity. The last woman, I am sorry to say, who has become an outcast from society, attributes her misfortune to a soldier; the officers, however, who rule these military slaves, are, generally, well educated and agreeable gentlemen. But these are not without their faults, and, if I might be allowed the expression, I would add, that they appear supremely ridiculous whenever they march into a church, on the Sabbath, with their swords dangling between their legs, and looking down upon the praying congregation in all the “pomp and circumstance of war.”