Professor Benjamin Silliman discourses thus:—
"A seat of ancient dominion—now hoary with the lapse of more than two centuries—formerly the seat of a French empire in the west—lost and won by the blood of gallant armies, and of illustrious commanders— throned on a rock, and defended by all the proud defiance of war! Who could approach such a city without emotion? Who in Canada has not longed to cast his eyes on the water-girt rocks and towers of Quebec."—(Silliman's Tour in Canada, 1819.)
Charles Lever has left a curious glimpse of Quebec from Diamond Harbour, as seen, by his incomparable Irish Gil Blas, Mr. Cornelius Cregan, the appreciated lodger of Madam Thomas John Davis at the "Hotel Davis."
"As viewed from Diamond Harbour, a more striking city than Quebec is seldom seen. The great rock rising above the Lower Town, and crowned with its batteries, all bristling with guns, seemed to my eyes the very realization of impregnability. I looked upon the ship that lay tranquilly on the water below, and whose decks were thronged with blue-jackets—to the Highlander who paced his short path as sentry, some hundred feet high upon the wall of the fortress, and I thought to myself with such defenders as these that standard yonder need never carry any other banner. The whole view is panoramic, the bending of the river shuts out the channel by which you have made your approach, giving the semblance of a lake, on whose surface vessels of every nation lie at anchor, some with the sails hung out to dry, gracefully drooping from the taper spars; others refitting again for sea, and loading the huge pine-trunks moored as vast rafts to the stern. There were people everywhere, all was motion, life and activity. Jolly-boats with twenty oars, man-of-war gigs bounding rapidly past them with eight; canoes skimming by without a ripple, and seemingly without impulse, till you caught sight of the lounging figure, who lay at full length in the stern, and whose red features were scarce distinguishable from the copper-coloured bark of his boat. Some moved upon the rafts, and even upon single trunks of trees, as, separated from the mass, they floated down on the swift current, boat-hook in hand to catch at the first object chance might offer them. The quays and the streets leading down to them were all thronged, and as you cast your eye upwards, here and there above the tall roofs might be seen the winding of stairs that lead to the Upper Town, alike dark with the moving tide of men. On every embrasure and gallery, on every terrace and platform, it was the same. Never did I behold such a human tide.
"Now there was something amazingly inspiriting in all this, particularly when coming from the solitude and monotony of a long voyage. [5] The very voice that ye-hoéd; the hoarse challenge of the sentinels on the rock; the busy hum of the town—made delicious music to my ear; and I could have stood and leaned over the bulwark for hours, to gaze at the scene. I own no higher interest invested the picture—for I was ignorant of Wolfe. I had never heard of Montcalm— the plains of "Abraham" were to me but grassy slopes, and "nothing more." It was the life and stir,—the tide of that human ocean, on which I longed myself to be a swimmer—these were what charmed me. Nor was the deck of the old "Hampden" inactive all the while, although seldom attracting much of my notice: soldiers were mustering, knapsacks packing, rolls calling, belts buffing, and coats brushing on all sides; men grumbling, sergeants cursing; officers swearing; half- dressed invalids popping up their heads out of hatchways, answering to wrong names, and doctors ordering them down again with many an anathema: soldiers in the way of sailors, and sailors always hauling at something that interfered with the inspection-drill: every one in the wrong place, and each cursing his neighbour for stupidity. At last the shore-boats boarded us, as if our confusion wanted anything to increase it. Red-faced harbour-masters shook hands with the skipper and pilot, and disappeared into the "round-house" to discuss grog and the gales. Officers from the garrison came out to welcome their friends—for it was the second battalion we had on board of a regiment whose first had been some years in Canada;—and then what a rush of inquiries were exchanged. "How is the Duke?"—"All quiet in England"— "No sign of war in Europe!"—"Are the 8th come home!"—"Where is Forbes?"—"Has Davern sold out?" with a mass of such small interests as engage men who live in coteries." (Confessions of Con. Cregan, Chap XIII.)
There are yet among the living in Quebec many who can recall the good olden times when our garrison contained two regiments and more of the red- coated soldiers of England, at the beck of the "Iron Duke"—him of Waterloo.
A Haligonian tourist thus writes:—
"HALIFAX, N. S., 1880.—I reached Halifax on the Saturday after leaving Quebec…..Nothing was wanting to make my impressions of Quebec perfect, but a little more time to widen, deepen and strengthen the friendships made; alas! to be severed (for a time) so soon. I went expecting to see a city perched on a rock and inhabited by the descendants of a conquered race with a chasm between them and every Englishman in the Dominion. In place of this, I found the city more picturesque, more odd, more grand, than I had ever imagined, and peopled by a race who, if conquered in 1759, have had sweet revenge ever since, by making a conquest of every stranger who has entered Quebec—through his higher nature. It is no wonder that Quebec has such a story of song and adventure. There is romance in the river and tragedy on the hill, and while the memory of Wolfe and Montcalm is green, the city will be the Mecca of the Dominion. But keep the hand of the Goth—the practical man—from touching the old historic landmarks of the city. A curse has been pronounced on those who remove their neighbours' landmark, but what shall be said of those who remove the landmarks which separate century from century and period from period." (J. T. Bulmer.)
The following affords a good specimen of Capt W. F Butler's pictorial style:—
"Spring breaks late over the province of Quebec—that portion of America known to our fathers as Lower Canada, and of old to the subjects of the Grand Monarque as the kingdom of New France. But when the young trees begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of winter, they do it quickly. The snow is not all gone before the maple trees are all green—the maple, that most beautiful of trees! Well has Canada made the symbol of her new nationality that tree whose green gives the spring its earliest freshness, whose autumn-dying tints are richer than the clouds of sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long summer with the scent and the hum of bee and flower! Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring. When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at Montreal, and Quebec is white with snow. Even between Montreal and Quebec, a short night's steaming, there exists a difference of ten days in the opening of the summer. But late as comes the summer to Quebec, it comes in its loveliest and most enticing form, as though it wished to atone for its long delay in banishing from such a landscape the cold tyranny of winter. And with what loveliness does the whole face of plain, river, lake and mountain turn from the iron clasp of icy winter to kiss the balmy lips of returning summer, and to welcome his bridal gifts of sun and shower! The trees open their leafy lids to look at him—the brooks and streamlets break forth into songs of gladness—"the birch tree," as the old Saxon said," becomes beautiful in its branches, and rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and fro by the breath of heaven"—the lakes uncover their sweet faces, and their mimic shores steal down in quiet evenings to bathe themselves in the transparent waters—far into the depths of the great forest speeds the glad message of returning glory, and graceful fern, and soft velvet moss, and white wax-like lily peep forth to cover rock and fallen tree and wreck of last year's autumn in one great sea of foliage. There are many landscapes which can never be painted, photographed, or described, but which the mind carries away instinctively to look at again and again in the after-time—these are the celebrated views of the world, and they are not easy to find. From the Queen's rampart, on the citadel of Quebec, the eye sweeps over a greater diversity of landscape than is probably to be found in any one spot in the universe. Blue mountain, far-stretching river, foaming cascade, the white sails of ocean ships, the black trunks of many- sized guns, the pointed roofs, the white village nestling amidst its fields of green, the great isle in mid-channel, the many shades of colour from deep blue pine-wood to yellowing corn-field—in what other spot on the earth's broad bosom lie grouped together in a single glance so many of these "things of beauty" which the eye loves to feast on and to place in memory as joys for ever?" (The Great Lone Land.)