North America-1 [31]
are placed exactly at the mouth of the little river of the same name, so that it may be said absolutely to fall into the St. Lawrence. The people of the country, however, declare that the river into which the waters of the Montmorency fall is not the St. Lawrence, but the Charles. Without a map I do not know that I can explain this. The River Charles appears to, and in fact does, run into the St. Lawrence just below Quebec. But the waters do not mix. The thicker, browner stream of the lesser river still keeps the northeastern bank till it comes to the Island of Orleans, which lies in the river five or six miles below Quebec. Here or hereabouts are the Falls of the Montmorency, and then the great river is divided for twenty-five miles by the Isle of Orleans. It is said that the waters of the Charles and the St. Lawrence do not mix till they meet each other at the foot of this island. I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a waterfall, and what little capacity I may have in this way I would wish to keep for Niagara. One thing I can say very positively about Montmorency, and one piece of advice I can give to those who visit the falls. The place from which to see them is not the horrible little wooden temple which has been built immediately over them on that side which lies nearest to Quebec. The stranger is put down at a gate through which a path leads to this temple, and at which a woman demands from him twenty-five cents for the privilege of entrance. Let him by all means pay the twenty-five cents. Why should he attempt to see the falls for nothing, seeing that this woman has a vested interest in the showing of them? I declare that if I thought that I should hinder this woman from her perquisites by what I write, I would leave it unwritten, and let my readers pursue their course to the temple--to their manifest injury. But they will pay the twenty-five cents. Then let them cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander round on the open field till they get the view of the falls, and the view of Quebec also, from the other side. It is worth the twenty-five cents and the hire of the carriage also. Immediately over the falls there was a suspension bridge, of which the supporting, or rather non-supporting, pillars are still to be seen. But the bridge fell down, one day, into the river; and--alas! alas!--with the bridge fell down an old woman, and a boy, and a cart--a cart and horse--and all found a watery grave together in the spray. No attempt has been made since that to renew the suspension bridge; but the present wooden bridge has been built higher up in lieu of it. Strangers naturally visit Quebec in summer or autumn, seeing that a Canada winter is a season with which a man cannot trifle; but I imagine that the mid-winter is the best time for seeing the Falls of Montmorency. The water in its fall is dashed into spray, and that spray becomes frozen, till a cone of ice is formed immediately under the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary glacier reaches nearly half way to the level of the higher river. Up this men climb--and ladies also, I am told--and then descend, with pleasant rapidity, on sledges of wood, sometimes not without an innocent tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in September, we did not experience the delights of this pastime. As I was too early for the ice cone under the Montmorency Falls, so also was I too late to visit the Saguenay River, which runs into the St. Lawrence some hundred miles below Quebec. I presume that the scenery of the Saguenay is the finest in Canada. During the summer steamers run down the St. Lawrence and up the Saguenay, but I was too late for them. An offer was made to us through the kindness of Sir Edmund Head, who was then the Governor-General, of the use of a steam-tug belonging to a gentleman who carries on a large commercial enterprise at Chicoutimi, far up the Saguenay; but an acceptance of this offer would have entailed some delay at Quebec, and, as we were anxious to get into the Northwestern States before