The family
returned
to
Europe.
Europe.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
Jacques Cartier, the first white man
who is known to have ascended this river, thus speaks of his voyage
from what is now Quebec to the foot of Lake St. Peter, or about
half-way to Montreal: "From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th
of the said month [September, 1535], we had been navigating up the
said river without losing hour or day, during which time we had seen
and found as much country and lands as level as we could desire, full
of the most beautiful trees in the world," which he goes on to
describe. But we merely slept and woke again to find that we had
passed through all that country which he was eight days in sailing
through. He must have had a troubled sleep. We were not long enough on
the river to realize that it had length; we got only the impression of
its breadth, as if we had passed over a lake a mile or two in breadth
and several miles long, though we might thus have slept through a
European kingdom. Being at the head of Lake St. Peter, on the
above-mentioned 28th of September, dealing with the natives, Cartier
says: "We inquired of them by signs if this was the route to Hochelaga
[Montreal]; and they answered that it was, and that there were yet
three days' journeys to go there. " He finally arrived at Hochelaga on
the 2d of October.
When I went on deck at dawn we had already passed through Lake St.
Peter, and saw islands ahead of us. Our boat advancing with a strong
and steady pulse over the calm surface, we felt as if we were
permitted to be awake in the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious
Lombardy poplars along the distant shores gave them a novel and
lively, though artificial, look, and contrasted strangely with the
slender and graceful elms on both shores and islands. The church of
Varennes, fifteen miles from Montreal, was conspicuous at a great
distance before us, appearing to belong to, and rise out of, the
river; and now, and before, Mount Royal indicated where the city was.
We arrived about seven o'clock, and set forth immediately to ascend
the mountain, two miles distant, going across lots in spite of
numerous signs threatening the severest penalties to trespassers, past
an old building known as the MacTavish property,--Simon MacTavish, I
suppose, whom Silliman refers to as "in a sense the founder of the
Northwestern Company. " His tomb was behind in the woods, with a
remarkably high wall and higher monument.
The family returned to
Europe. He could not have imagined how dead he would be in a few
years, and all the more dead and forgotten for being buried under such
a mass of gloomy stone, where not even memory could get at him without
a crowbar. Ah! poor man, with that last end of his! However, he may
have been the worthiest of mortals for aught that I know. From the
mountain-top we got a view of the whole city; the flat, fertile,
extensive island; the noble sea of the St. Lawrence swelling into
lakes; the mountains about St. Hyacinthe, and in Vermont and New York;
and the mouth of the Ottawa in the west, overlooking that St. Anne's
where the voyageur sings his "parting hymn," and bids adieu to
civilization,--a name, thanks to Moore's verses, the most suggestive
of poetic associations of any in Canada. We, too, climbed the hill
which Cartier, first of white men, ascended, and named Mont-real (the
3d of October, O. S. , 1535), and, like him, "we saw the said river as
far as we could see, _grand_, _large_, _et spacieux_, going to
the southwest," toward that land whither Donnacona had told the
discoverer that he had been a month's journey from Canada, where there
grew "_force Canelle et Girofle_," much cinnamon and cloves, and where
also, as the natives told him, were three great lakes and afterward
_une mer douce_,--a sweet sea,--_de laquelle n'est mention avoir vu le
bout_, of which there is no mention to have seen the end. But instead
of an Indian town far in the interior of a new world, with guides to
show us where the river came from, we found a splendid and bustling
stone-built city of white men, and only a few squalid Indians offered
to sell us baskets at the Lachine Railroad Depot, and Hochelaga is,
perchance, but the fancy name of an engine company or an eating-house.
[Illustration: _Montreal from Mount Royal_]
We left Montreal Wednesday, the 2d of October, late in the afternoon.
In the La Prairie cars the Yankees made themselves merry, imitating
the cries of the charette-drivers to perfection, greatly to the
amusement of some French-Canadian travelers, and they kept it up all
the way to Boston. I saw one person on board the boat at St.
who is known to have ascended this river, thus speaks of his voyage
from what is now Quebec to the foot of Lake St. Peter, or about
half-way to Montreal: "From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th
of the said month [September, 1535], we had been navigating up the
said river without losing hour or day, during which time we had seen
and found as much country and lands as level as we could desire, full
of the most beautiful trees in the world," which he goes on to
describe. But we merely slept and woke again to find that we had
passed through all that country which he was eight days in sailing
through. He must have had a troubled sleep. We were not long enough on
the river to realize that it had length; we got only the impression of
its breadth, as if we had passed over a lake a mile or two in breadth
and several miles long, though we might thus have slept through a
European kingdom. Being at the head of Lake St. Peter, on the
above-mentioned 28th of September, dealing with the natives, Cartier
says: "We inquired of them by signs if this was the route to Hochelaga
[Montreal]; and they answered that it was, and that there were yet
three days' journeys to go there. " He finally arrived at Hochelaga on
the 2d of October.
When I went on deck at dawn we had already passed through Lake St.
Peter, and saw islands ahead of us. Our boat advancing with a strong
and steady pulse over the calm surface, we felt as if we were
permitted to be awake in the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious
Lombardy poplars along the distant shores gave them a novel and
lively, though artificial, look, and contrasted strangely with the
slender and graceful elms on both shores and islands. The church of
Varennes, fifteen miles from Montreal, was conspicuous at a great
distance before us, appearing to belong to, and rise out of, the
river; and now, and before, Mount Royal indicated where the city was.
We arrived about seven o'clock, and set forth immediately to ascend
the mountain, two miles distant, going across lots in spite of
numerous signs threatening the severest penalties to trespassers, past
an old building known as the MacTavish property,--Simon MacTavish, I
suppose, whom Silliman refers to as "in a sense the founder of the
Northwestern Company. " His tomb was behind in the woods, with a
remarkably high wall and higher monument.
The family returned to
Europe. He could not have imagined how dead he would be in a few
years, and all the more dead and forgotten for being buried under such
a mass of gloomy stone, where not even memory could get at him without
a crowbar. Ah! poor man, with that last end of his! However, he may
have been the worthiest of mortals for aught that I know. From the
mountain-top we got a view of the whole city; the flat, fertile,
extensive island; the noble sea of the St. Lawrence swelling into
lakes; the mountains about St. Hyacinthe, and in Vermont and New York;
and the mouth of the Ottawa in the west, overlooking that St. Anne's
where the voyageur sings his "parting hymn," and bids adieu to
civilization,--a name, thanks to Moore's verses, the most suggestive
of poetic associations of any in Canada. We, too, climbed the hill
which Cartier, first of white men, ascended, and named Mont-real (the
3d of October, O. S. , 1535), and, like him, "we saw the said river as
far as we could see, _grand_, _large_, _et spacieux_, going to
the southwest," toward that land whither Donnacona had told the
discoverer that he had been a month's journey from Canada, where there
grew "_force Canelle et Girofle_," much cinnamon and cloves, and where
also, as the natives told him, were three great lakes and afterward
_une mer douce_,--a sweet sea,--_de laquelle n'est mention avoir vu le
bout_, of which there is no mention to have seen the end. But instead
of an Indian town far in the interior of a new world, with guides to
show us where the river came from, we found a splendid and bustling
stone-built city of white men, and only a few squalid Indians offered
to sell us baskets at the Lachine Railroad Depot, and Hochelaga is,
perchance, but the fancy name of an engine company or an eating-house.
[Illustration: _Montreal from Mount Royal_]
We left Montreal Wednesday, the 2d of October, late in the afternoon.
In the La Prairie cars the Yankees made themselves merry, imitating
the cries of the charette-drivers to perfection, greatly to the
amusement of some French-Canadian travelers, and they kept it up all
the way to Boston. I saw one person on board the boat at St.
