There is no fleet of fresh water passenger steamers in the world equaling those which call Detroit their home port, and our Detroit River is too fine and dignified to cut up any of the antics in which some rivers indulge. It never rises and messes up the city for it is too busy carrying its countless boats of precious freight.
Detroit is a great manufacturing city, and it is quite likely that the flowers and vegetables in your garden, the medicine that cures you when you are sick, and the auto that you ride in, came from our city, for Detroit leads the world in these manufactures.
One thing is certain, if the varnish on your floors and furniture is the best that can be bought, it came from BERRY BROTHERS.
Canada is larger than the whole United States including Alaska, and probably it would keep on forever if the Pacific ocean did not stop it on the west, the Arctic on the north, and the Atlantic on the east.
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and the Parliament buildings are among the finest buildings in the world. Just to look at them makes one think of kings and queens and all sorts of grandeur. We found it hard to imagine that a little over a century ago, terrible Indian massacres were taking place here. The Hurons and Algonquins used to come down the Ottawa river with their canoes loaded with furs, and the cruel Iroquois used to lie in wait to torture them in order to get those pelts.
Montreal, on the St. Lawrence, is another beautiful city. Here we saw great ocean steamers unloading freight from all parts of the earth. The harbor of Montreal was the first port in the world to be lighted with electricity, so that the loading of steamers can go on by night as well as by day. They put in as many hours as possible, for during four months of the year the river is frozen so that no commerce can go on.
In the old Chateau de Ramezay, which used to be the governor's residence, were signed the papers which made the colony an English instead of a French one.
A hundred and seventy two miles beyond Montreal lies Quebec. No, it does not "lie," for it stands way up on a high bluff above the St. Lawrence. This bluff is called the Citadel and is one of the strongest fortresses in the world. It is sometimes called "the Gibraltar of the Western Hemisphere."
Quebec is divided into two parts called the "Lower Town" and the "Upper Town," so that the city seems to have an upstairs and a downstairs. You can climb up or down through some queer, crooked, narrow street like Mountain Street or Breakneck Stairs, or can ride in a big "lift" which is the English word for elevator. The Lower town is very picturesque and artists like it, but we boys think the Upper town is much more cheerful and beautiful.