The towers on either side of the river still mark the spot where, several years ago, a suspension bridge was erected, but which, through some defect, gave way as a laborer and his family were crossing in a cart, precipitating them into the gulf below.
Returning to Quebec, the views of the city are enlivened by the peculiar feature of glistening towers and roofs, so noticeable in connection with many Canadian cities. The sunlight, glancing from the metal-covered roofs, spires, and dormer windows, which, owing to the tortuous windings of the streets, are set at every conceivable angle, produces a brilliant and sparkling effect.
If you are ever tempted to indulge in sentiment, the words of the poet, used to describe the Celestial city, may come into mind:—
“There is the city in splendor sublime;
See how its towers and battlements shine.”
THE SAGUENAY RIVER.
This is the largest affluent of the St. Lawrence, which it joins about 120 miles below Quebec. The scenery of the Saguenay is strikingly grand and romantic, and unlike anything else east of the Rocky Mountains. It is usually visited by boat, and the trip down the St. Lawrence to Tadousac, at the junction of the two streams, and up the Saguenay among its bold, wild scenery, should not be omitted, even at the expense of slighting some other point of interest lying in the highways of fashionable travel.
Leaving Quebec by steamer, you pass through some remarkably fine scenery, in which the majestic St. Lawrence abounds, the river being in some places thirty miles in width, and dotted with a multitude of islands, abounding in game. The Falls of St. Anne are on the river of that name, which enters the St. Lawrence off the lower end of Orleans Island through a bold ravine. The quarantine station on Grosse Isle is passed, and is associated with sad memories of the famine in Ireland. It received twenty thousand plague-stricken emigrants, of whom six thousand now lie in a single grave, marked by a stone monument.
Ninety miles below Quebec is the fashionable watering place known as Murray Bay. The river is here twenty miles wide, and the tides have a range of twenty feet in height. On the south shore of the river, still further down, is Riviere du Loup, a place of some importance, and six miles below it is Cacouna, already quite famous as a pleasure resort, and yearly increasing in popularity. Across the river from Cacouna is Tadousac, at the mouth of the far-famed Saguenay, formerly a place of some commercial importance as a post of the Hudson Bay Company, and one of the first towns on the St. Lawrence fortified by the French. It has a good hotel, near which is a little church over 250 years old.
TADOUSAC, AT MOUTH OF SAGUENAY RIVER.