The most
interesting
object in Canada to me was the River St.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
The child that is born and brought up thirty miles
distant, and has never traveled to the city, reads his country's
history, sees the level lines of the citadel amid the cloud-built
citadels in the western horizon, and is told that that is Quebec. No
wonder if Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed in Norman French, "Que
bec! " (What a beak! ) when he saw this cape, as some suppose. Every
modern traveler involuntarily uses a similar expression. Particularly
it is said that its sudden apparition on turning Point Levi makes a
memorable impression on him who arrives by water. The view from Cape
Diamond has been compared by European travelers with the most
remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe, such as from Edinburgh
Castle, Gibraltar, Cintra, and others, and preferred by many. A main
peculiarity in this, compared with other views which I have beheld, is
that it is from the ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a
solitary and majestic river cape alone, that this view is obtained. I
associate the beauty of Quebec with the steel-like and flashing air,
which may be peculiar to that season of the year, in which the blue
flowers of the succory and some late goldenrods and buttercups on the
summit of Cape Diamond were almost my only companions,--the former
bluer than the heavens they faced. Yet even I yielded in some degree
to the influence of historical associations, and found it hard to
attend to the geology of Cape Diamond or the botany of the Plains of
Abraham. I still remember the harbor far beneath me, sparkling like
silver in the sun, the answering highlands of Point Levi on the
southeast, the frowning Cap Tourmente abruptly bounding the seaward
view far in the northeast, the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on
the north, and, further west, the distant Val Cartier, sparkling with
white cottages, hardly removed by distance through the clear air,--not
to mention a few blue mountains along the horizon in that direction.
You look out from the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers of
civilization. Yonder small group of hills, according to the
guide-book, forms "the portal of the wilds which are trodden only by
the feet of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson's Bay. " It is but a
few years since Bouchette declared that the country ten leagues north
of the British capital of North America was as little known as the
middle of Africa. Thus the citadel under my feet, and all historical
associations, were swept away again by an influence from the wilds and
from Nature, as if the beholder had read her history,--an influence
which, like the Great River itself, flowed from the Arctic fastnesses
and Western forests with irresistible tide over all.
The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St.
Lawrence, known far and wide, and for centuries, as the Great River.
Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as Montreal in
1535,--nearly a century before the coming of the Pilgrims; and I have
seen a pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the city of
"Hochelaga" and the river "Saguenay," in Ortelius's _Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum_, printed at Antwerp in 1575,--the first edition having
appeared in 1570,--in which the famous cities of "Norumbega" and
"Orsinora" stand on the rough-blocked continent where New England is
to-day, and the fabulous but unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant,
and others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, some of them
prowling near what is now the course of the Cunard steamers. In this
ponderous folio of the "Ptolemy of his age," said to be the first
general atlas published after the revival of the sciences in Europe,
only one page of which is devoted to the topography of the _Novus
Orbis_, the St. Lawrence is the only large river, whether drawn from
fancy or from observation, on the east side of North America. It was
famous in Europe before the other rivers of North America were heard
of, notwithstanding that the mouth of the Mississippi is said to have
been discovered first, and its stream was reached by Soto not long
after; but the St. Lawrence had attracted settlers to its cold shores
long before the Mississippi, or even the Hudson, was known to the
world. Schoolcraft was misled by Gallatin into saying that Narvaez
discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does _not_ say so. The first
explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as
France, and they named one of the bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the
Bay of Chaleur, or of warmth; but they said nothing about the winter
being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript account of Cartier's
second voyage, attributed by some to that navigator himself, it is
called "the greatest river, without comparison, that is known to have
ever been seen. " The savages told him that it was the "chemin du
Canada,"--the highway to Canada,--"which goes so far that no man had
ever been to the end that they had heard. " The Saguenay, one of its
tributaries, which the panorama has made known to New England within
three years, is described by Cartier, in 1535, and still more
particularly by Jean Alphonse, in 1542, who adds, "I think that this
river comes from the sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a
strong current, and there runs there a terrible tide. " The early
explorers saw many whales and other sea-monsters far up the St.
Lawrence.
distant, and has never traveled to the city, reads his country's
history, sees the level lines of the citadel amid the cloud-built
citadels in the western horizon, and is told that that is Quebec. No
wonder if Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed in Norman French, "Que
bec! " (What a beak! ) when he saw this cape, as some suppose. Every
modern traveler involuntarily uses a similar expression. Particularly
it is said that its sudden apparition on turning Point Levi makes a
memorable impression on him who arrives by water. The view from Cape
Diamond has been compared by European travelers with the most
remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe, such as from Edinburgh
Castle, Gibraltar, Cintra, and others, and preferred by many. A main
peculiarity in this, compared with other views which I have beheld, is
that it is from the ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a
solitary and majestic river cape alone, that this view is obtained. I
associate the beauty of Quebec with the steel-like and flashing air,
which may be peculiar to that season of the year, in which the blue
flowers of the succory and some late goldenrods and buttercups on the
summit of Cape Diamond were almost my only companions,--the former
bluer than the heavens they faced. Yet even I yielded in some degree
to the influence of historical associations, and found it hard to
attend to the geology of Cape Diamond or the botany of the Plains of
Abraham. I still remember the harbor far beneath me, sparkling like
silver in the sun, the answering highlands of Point Levi on the
southeast, the frowning Cap Tourmente abruptly bounding the seaward
view far in the northeast, the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on
the north, and, further west, the distant Val Cartier, sparkling with
white cottages, hardly removed by distance through the clear air,--not
to mention a few blue mountains along the horizon in that direction.
You look out from the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers of
civilization. Yonder small group of hills, according to the
guide-book, forms "the portal of the wilds which are trodden only by
the feet of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson's Bay. " It is but a
few years since Bouchette declared that the country ten leagues north
of the British capital of North America was as little known as the
middle of Africa. Thus the citadel under my feet, and all historical
associations, were swept away again by an influence from the wilds and
from Nature, as if the beholder had read her history,--an influence
which, like the Great River itself, flowed from the Arctic fastnesses
and Western forests with irresistible tide over all.
The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St.
Lawrence, known far and wide, and for centuries, as the Great River.
Cartier, its discoverer, sailed up it as far as Montreal in
1535,--nearly a century before the coming of the Pilgrims; and I have
seen a pretty accurate map of it so far, containing the city of
"Hochelaga" and the river "Saguenay," in Ortelius's _Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum_, printed at Antwerp in 1575,--the first edition having
appeared in 1570,--in which the famous cities of "Norumbega" and
"Orsinora" stand on the rough-blocked continent where New England is
to-day, and the fabulous but unfortunate Isle of Demons, and Frislant,
and others, lie off and on in the unfrequented sea, some of them
prowling near what is now the course of the Cunard steamers. In this
ponderous folio of the "Ptolemy of his age," said to be the first
general atlas published after the revival of the sciences in Europe,
only one page of which is devoted to the topography of the _Novus
Orbis_, the St. Lawrence is the only large river, whether drawn from
fancy or from observation, on the east side of North America. It was
famous in Europe before the other rivers of North America were heard
of, notwithstanding that the mouth of the Mississippi is said to have
been discovered first, and its stream was reached by Soto not long
after; but the St. Lawrence had attracted settlers to its cold shores
long before the Mississippi, or even the Hudson, was known to the
world. Schoolcraft was misled by Gallatin into saying that Narvaez
discovered the Mississippi. De Vega does _not_ say so. The first
explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as
France, and they named one of the bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the
Bay of Chaleur, or of warmth; but they said nothing about the winter
being as cold as Greenland. In the manuscript account of Cartier's
second voyage, attributed by some to that navigator himself, it is
called "the greatest river, without comparison, that is known to have
ever been seen. " The savages told him that it was the "chemin du
Canada,"--the highway to Canada,--"which goes so far that no man had
ever been to the end that they had heard. " The Saguenay, one of its
tributaries, which the panorama has made known to New England within
three years, is described by Cartier, in 1535, and still more
particularly by Jean Alphonse, in 1542, who adds, "I think that this
river comes from the sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a
strong current, and there runs there a terrible tide. " The early
explorers saw many whales and other sea-monsters far up the St.
Lawrence.
