With quaint old gable ends that glow
Bright in the sunset's fire;
And, gliding through the shadows still,
Oft notice, with a lover's thrill,
The peeping of a spire."
In the eighteenth century, Kalm, a Swedish tourist in America, said it could be really called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, "for the farmhouses are never more than five arpents apart, and sometimes but three asunder, a few places excepted;" and two centuries ago a traveller on the river wrote that the houses "were never more than a gunshot apart." All the people are French, retaining the language and old customs, simple-minded and primitive, the same as under the ancient French régime, and excepting that one village, Varennes, has put two towers upon its stately church, all of them are exactly alike. It is recorded that in Champlain's time some Huguenot sailors came up the river piously singing psalm tunes. This did not please the officials, and soon a boat with soldiers put off from one of these villages, and the officer in charge told them that "Monseigneur, the Viceroy, did not wish that they should sing psalms on the great river." The first steamer that came along the St. Lawrence created unlimited dread, horrifying the villagers. Solemnly crossing himself, an old voyageur, who probably thought his trade on the waters endangered, exclaimed, in his astonishment, "But can you believe that the good God will permit all that?"
The Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, comes in at Sorel, the chief affluent on the southern bank, its canal system making a navigable connection with the Hudson River. Cardinal Richelieu took great interest in early Canadian colonization, and Fort Richelieu was built at the mouth of this river, being afterwards enlarged to prevent Iroquois forays, by Captain Sorel, whose name is preserved in the town. Below, there is an archipelago of low alluvial islands, and the St. Lawrence broadens out into Lake St. Peter, nine or ten miles wide, and generally shallow, this being the head of the tidal influence. On its southern side flows in the St. Francis River, the outlet of Lake Memphremagog and of many streams and lakes in the vast wilderness along the boundary north of Vermont and east of Lake Champlain. At its mouth is the little village of St. François du Lac. As the shores contract below Lake St. Peter, the town of Three Rivers is passed midway between Montreal and Quebec. Here the fine river St. Maurice, another great lumber-producing stream, flows in upon the northern bank, two little islands dividing its mouth into a delta of three channels, thus naming the town. The St. Maurice is full of rapids and cataracts, the chief being Shawanagan Fall, about twenty miles inland, noted for its grandeur and remarkable character. The river, suddenly bending and divided into two streams by a pile of rocks, falls nearly one hundred and fifty feet and dashes against an opposing wall, where the reunited stream forces its way through a narrow passage scarcely a hundred feet wide. The two lofty rocks bounding this abyss are called La Grande Mere and Le Bon Homme. The headwaters of St. Maurice interlock with some of those of the gloomy Saguenay north of Quebec. An enormous output of lumber comes down to Three Rivers, and the district also produces much bog iron ore. Here are extensive sawmills, iron-works, and one of the largest paper-pulp establishments in America, the unrivalled water-power being thus utilized. Below the St. Maurice, as the outcropping foothills from the Laurentian Mountains approach the river, the scenery becomes more picturesque. The Richelieu rapids are here, requiring careful navigation among the rocks, and Jacques Cartier River comes in from the north. In front of St. Augustin village, years ago, the steamer "Montreal" was burnt with a loss of two hundred lives, and on the outskirts is an ancient ruined church, which is said to have fallen in decay because the devil assisted at its building. This was in 1720, and the tradition is that His Satanic Majesty appeared in the form of a powerful black stallion, who hauled the blocks of stone, until his driver, halting at a watering-trough, where there was also a small receptacle of holy water for the faithful, unbridled the horse, who became suddenly restive and vanished in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Many pious pilgrimages are made to the present fine church of the village, having a statue of the guardian angel standing out in front, commemorating the Vatican Council of 1870. As Quebec is approached, the "coves" are seen on the northern shore, arranged with booms for the timber ships, for easier transfer of lumber from the rafts floated down the river, and the steep bluffs behind run off into Cape Diamond, projecting far across the stream. Old Sillery Church stands up with its tall spire atop of the bold bluff, with a monastery behind it. Here Noel Brulart de Sillery, Knight of Malta, in 1637, established one of the early Jesuit missions. Point Levis stretches from the southern bank to narrow the river channel. The low gray walls of the citadel surmount the highest point of the extremity of Cape Diamond, and rounding it, we are at Quebec.
ORIGIN OF QUEBEC.
Whence comes the name of Quebec? "Quel bec! Quel bec!"—(What a beak!)—shouted Jacques Cartier's astonished sailors, when, sailing up the St. Lawrence, they first beheld the startling promontory of Cape Diamond, thrust in towering majesty almost across the river. Thus, says one tradition, by a natural elision, was named Quebec, when the Europeans first saw the rock in 1535. Another derivation comes from Candebec on the Seine, which it much resembles. The Indian word "Kebic," meaning "the fearful rocky cliff," may have been its origin. The Indian village of Stadacona was here when Cartier found it, a cluster of wigwams fringing the shore in front of the bold cliff, its people bearing allegiance to the Montaignais chief, Donnacona. Here the ancient chronicle records that Cartier saw a "mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the raging current," and he planted the cross and lilies of France and took possession for his king. Returning to Europe, he took back as prisoners the chief, Donnacona, and several of his warriors, their arrival making a great sensation. They were fêted and prayed for, and becoming converted, were baptised with pomp in the presence of a vast assemblage in the magnificent Cathedral of Rouen. But the round of pleasure and feasting, with the excess of excitement, overcame these children of the forest, and they all died within a year. Colonization on the St. Lawrence, after Cartier's voyages, languished for seventy years, various ill-starred expeditions failing, and it was not until 1608 that the city of Quebec was really founded by Samuel de Champlain, who was sent out by a company of associated noblemen of France to establish a fur trade with the Indians and open a new field for the Church, the Roman Catholic religion being then in the full tide of enthusiasm which in the seventeenth century made what was known as the "counter reformation." Champlain built a fort and established the province of New France, but his colony was of slow growth. There subsequently came out the military and commercial adventurers and religious enthusiasts, who were the first settlers of the new empire. The Recollet Fathers came in 1615, and the Jesuit missionary priests in 1625 and subsequently. The famous Canadian bishop, Laval de Montmorency, Father Hennepin, and the Sieur de la Salle, all came out in the same ship at a later period. Thus was founded the great French Catholic power in North America.