FEMALE PEASANTS.
The female French peasants are in general, whilst young, very pretty, and the neat simplicity of their dress in summer, which consists mostly of a blue or scarlet bodice without sleeves, a petticoat of a different colour, and a straw hat, makes them appear extremely interesting; like the Indians, however, they lose their beauty very prematurely, and it is to be attributed much to the same cause, namely, their laborious life, and being so much exposed to the air, the indolent men suffering them to take a very active part in the management of the farms.
The style of farming amongst the generality of the French Canadians has hitherto been very slovenly; manure has been but rarely used; the earth just lightly turned up with a plough, and without any other preparation the grain sown; more than one half of the fields also have been left without any fences whatsoever, exposed to the ravages of cattle. The people are beginning now, however, to be more industrious, and better farmers, owing to the increased demand for grain for exportation, and to the advice and encouragement given to them by the English merchants at Quebec and Montreal, who send agents through the country to the farmers to buy up all the corn they can spare. The farmers are bound to have their corn ready by a certain day on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and bateaux are then sent by the merchants to receive and convey it to the port where it is to be shipped.
CHARACTERS.
All the settlements in Lower Canada lie contiguous to the River St. Lawrence: in no place perhaps do they extend farther back than twelve miles from it, except along the banks of the River St. Jean, the River des Prairies, and some other navigable streams falling into the St. Lawrence. This is owing to the disposition of the French Canadians, who, like the Germans, are fond of living near each other; nay more, as long as the farm of the father will admit of a division, a share of it is given to the sons when they are grown up, and it is only when the farm is exceedingly small, or the family numerous, that they ever think of taking up a piece of fresh land from the seignior. In this respect a wonderful difference appears between their conduct and that of the young people of the United States, particularly of those of New England, who, as soon as they are grown up, immediately emigrate, and bury themselves in the woods, where, perhaps, they are five or six hundred miles distant from every relation upon earth: yet a spirit of enterprize is not wanting amongst the Canadians; they eagerly come forward, when called upon, to traverse the immense lakes in the western regions; they laugh at the dreadful storms on those prodigious bodies of water; they work with indefatigable perseverance at the oar and the pole in stemming the rapid currents of the rivers; nor do they complain, when, on these expeditions, they happen to be exposed to the inclemency of the seasons, or to the severest pangs of hunger. The spirit of the Canadian is excited by vanity; he delights in talking to his friends and relatives of the excursions he has made to those distant regions; and he glories in the perils which he has encountered: his vanity would not be gratified by chopping down trees and tilling the earth; he deems this therefore merely a secondary pursuit, and he sets about it with reluctance: self interest, on the contrary, it is that rouses the citizen of the states into action, and accordingly he hastily emigrates to a distant part of the country, where he thinks land is in the most rising state, and where he hopes to be able the soonest to gratify a passion to which he would readily make a sacrifice of every social tie, and of all that another man would hold dear.
On the second day of our journey from Quebec to Montreal we reached Trois Rivieres, lying nearly midway between the two places. This town is situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, close to the mouth of the River St. Maurice, the largest of upwards of thirty that fall into the St. Lawrence, on the north-west side alone, between Quebec and Montreal. This river, before it unites with the St. Lawrence, is divided into three streams by two large islands, so that to a person sailing past its mouth it appears as if three distinct rivers disembogued at the one spot; from hence it is that the town of Trois Rivieres receives its name.
The St. Maurice is not navigable for large vessels, neither is it for sloops more than a few miles above its mouth. In bateaus and canoes, however, it may be ascended nearly to its source; from whence, if credit is to be given to the accounts of the Indians, the distance is not very great to the head of navigable rivers that fall into Hudson’s Bay; at a future day, therefore, if ever the dreary and inhospitable waste through which it passes shall put on a different aspect from what it now wears, and become the abode of human beings instead of wild beasts, the St. Maurice may be esteemed a river of the first importance in a commercial point of view; at present there are a few scattered settlements on each side of it, from its mouth as far as the iron works, which are about nine miles distant from Trois Rivieres; beyond that the country is but little known except to Indians.
TROIS RIVIERES.
Trois Rivieres contains about two hundred and fifty or three hundred houses, and ranks as the third town, in point of size, in the provinces. It is one of the oldest settlements in the country, and its founder, it is said, calculated upon its becoming in a short time a city of great extent. It has hitherto, however, increased but very slowly in size, and there is no reason to imagine that it will increase more rapidly in future, at least until the country bordering upon the St. Maurice becomes settled, a period that may be very distant. The bank of iron ore in the neighbourhood, by the manufacture of which it was expected that the town would suddenly become opulent, is now nearly exhausted; nor do we find that this bank has ever furnished more ore than was sufficient to keep one small forge and one small foundry employed at intervals. The fur trade also, from which so much benefit was expected, is now almost wholly centered at Quebec and Montreal; it is merely the small quantity of furs brought down the St. Maurice, and some of the northern rivers that fall into the St. Lawrence, nearer to the town of Trois Rivieres than to Quebec or Montreal, that is shipped there. These furs are laden on board the Montreal ships, which stop opposite to the town as they go down the river.
The country in the vicinity of Trois Rivieres has been represented by some French travellers as wonderfully fertile, and as one of the most agreeable parts of Canada; but it is totally the reverse. It is a level barren tract, and so sandy, that in walking along many of the streets of the town, and the roads in the neighbourhood, you sink into the sand at every step above the ankles. The sand is of a whitish colour, and very loose. The air also swarms with musquitoes, a certain proof of the low damp situation of the place. In none of the other inhabited parts of Canada, except in the neighbourhood of Lake St. Charles, were we ever annoyed with these troublesome insects. In Quebec, indeed, and Montreal, they are scarcely ever seen.