"Eight days of varied horror passed; what boots it now to tell
How the pale tenants of the fort heroically fell?
Hunger and thirst and sleeplessness, Death's ghastly aids, at length,
Marred and defaced their comely forms, and quelled their giant strength.
The end draws nigh—they yearn to die—one glorious rally more,
For the dear sake of Ville Marie and all will soon be o'er;
Sure of the martyr's golden Crown, they shrink not from the Cross,
Life yielded for the land they loved, they scorn to reckon loss."
Some distance above, at the Chateau Montebello, lived in the early nineteenth century Louis Joseph Papineau, the "French-Canadian O'Connell," the seigneur of the district, who was the local leader in resistance to English aggressions, of whom the French are very proud, and his portrait hangs in the Parliament House at Ottawa. He was defeated, banished and then pardoned, and lived here to a ripe old age to see many of the reforms and privileges for which he had contended fully realized under subsequent administrations. The Riviere aux Lièvres rushes into the Ottawa down a turbulent cascade, through which logs dash until caught in the booms at the sawmills below, where are vast lumber piles. This river is two hundred and eighty miles long, and just above its mouth has a fall at Buckingham of seventy feet, giving an enormous water-power. The whole region hereabout is devoted to lumbering. The French habitan from Lower Quebec comes up into this wilderness of woods with scarcely any capital but his axe, in the use of which he is expert. These Canadians do not like leaving their homes, but are compelled by sheer necessity. When the old Quebec farm has been subdivided among the children, under the French system, until the long, ribbon-like strips of land become so narrow between the fences that there is no opportunity for further sub-division, the young men must seek a livelihood elsewhere. The old man gives them a blessing, with a good axe and two or three dollars, and they start for the lumber camps. They catch abundant fish, can live on almost nothing, and need only buy their flour and salt, with some pork for a luxury. These lumbermen often wear picturesque costumes like the old voyageurs, and they like flaming red scarfs. They are as polite as the most courtly French gentleman, and pass their evenings in dancing, with music and singing the ancient songs of their forefathers, scorning anything modern. Many of them are Metis, or half-breeds, the descendants of French and Indians. These are more heavy featured and not so sprightly as the pure French, but they are equally skillful woodmen, and have inherited many good traits from both races, though they rather regard with pity their full-blooded Indian half-brothers, whose lot is scarcely as favorable. All these people are devout Catholics, and going up into the woods in the late autumn and remaining until after Easter, the priests always visit their camps to attend to their spiritual wants. An impressive scene in these vast forests in the dawn of a cold winter morning is to see the priest standing with outstretched arms at the rude altar, the light of the candles revealing the earnest faces of his flock as they reverentially attend the mass. These woodmen are firm believers in the supernatural, convinced that the spirits of the dead come back in various shapes. If a single crow is seen they are sure a calamity has occurred; if two crows fly before them it means a wedding. An owl hooting indicates impending danger. They are always hearing strange voices at night, or seeing ominous shapes in the twilight wood shadows. The Metis are good hunters, and great is their joy when a belated bear is found near the camp, or a deer or moose is tracked in the snow. Their lumbering is done near the streams, so the logs may be thrown in and floated down by the spring freshets. They make a vast product of timber, sold throughout the lakes and St. Lawrence region, much going across the Atlantic.