This was the utmost
incivility
we met with in Canada.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
" The reader can infer to
what extent they had engaged in agriculture, and how their farms must
have shone by this time. The New England youth, on the other hand,
were never _coureurs de bois_ nor _voyageurs_, but backwoodsmen and
sailors rather. Of all nations the English undoubtedly have proved
hitherto that they had the most business here.
Yet I am not sure but I have most sympathy with that spirit of adventure
which distinguished the French and Spaniards of those days, and made
them especially the explorers of the American Continent,--which so
early carried the former to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi on the
north, and the latter to the same river on the south. It was long
before our frontiers reached their settlements in the West. So far as
inland discovery was concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English
was that of sailors who land but for a day, and their enterprise the
enterprise of traders.
There was apparently a greater equality of condition among the
habitans of Montmorenci County than in New England. They are an almost
exclusively agricultural, and so far independent population, each
family producing nearly all the necessaries of life for itself. If the
Canadian wants energy, perchance he possesses those virtues, social
and others, which the Yankee lacks, in which case he cannot be
regarded as a poor man.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] From McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary we learn that
"immediately beyond the Island of Orleans it is a mile broad; where
the Saguenay joins it, eighteen miles; at Point Peter, upward of
thirty; at the Bay of Seven Islands, seventy miles; and at the Island
of Anticosti (above three hundred and fifty miles from Quebec), it
rolls a flood into the ocean nearly one hundred miles across. "
CHAPTER IV
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC
After spending the night at a farmhouse in Chateau Richer, about a
dozen miles northeast of Quebec, we set out on our return to the city.
We stopped at the next house, a picturesque old stone mill, over the
_Chipre_,--for so the name sounded,--such as you will nowhere see in
the States, and asked the millers the age of the mill. They went
upstairs to call the master; but the crabbed old miser asked why we
wanted to know, and would tell us only for some compensation. I wanted
French to give him a piece of my mind. I had got enough to talk on a
pinch, but not to quarrel, so I had to come away, looking all I would
have said.
This was the utmost incivility we met with in Canada. In
Beauport, within a few miles of Quebec, we turned aside to look at a
church which was just being completed,--a very large and handsome
edifice of stone, with a green bough stuck in its gable, of some
significance to Catholics. The comparative wealth of the Church in
this country was apparent; for in this village we did not see one good
house besides. They were all humble cottages; and yet this appeared to
me a more imposing structure than any church in Boston. But I am no
judge of these things.
Reentering Quebec through St. John's Gate, we took a caleche in Market
Square for the Falls of the Chaudiere, about nine miles southwest of
the city, for which we were to pay so much, besides forty sous for
tolls. The driver, as usual, spoke French only. The number of these
vehicles is very great for so small a town. They are like one of our
chaises that has lost its top, only stouter and longer in the body,
with a seat for the driver where the dasher is with us, and broad
leather ears on each side to protect the riders from the wheel and
keep children from falling out. They had an easy jaunting look, which,
as our hours were numbered, persuaded us to be riders. We met with
them on every road near Quebec these days, each with its complement of
two inquisitive-looking foreigners and a Canadian driver, the former
evidently enjoying their novel experience, for commonly it is only the
horse whose language you do not understand; but they were one remove
further from him by the intervention of an equally unintelligible
driver. We crossed the St. Lawrence to Point Levi in a French-Canadian
ferry-boat, which was inconvenient and dirty, and managed with great
noise and bustle. The current was very strong and tumultuous; and the
boat tossed enough to make some sick, though it was only a mile
across; yet the wind was not to be compared with that of the day
before, and we saw that the Canadians had a good excuse for not taking
us over to the Isle of Orleans in a pirogue, however shiftless they
may be for not having provided any other conveyance. The route which
we took to the Chaudiere did not afford us those views of Quebec which
we had expected, and the country and inhabitants appeared less
interesting to a traveler than those we had seen.
what extent they had engaged in agriculture, and how their farms must
have shone by this time. The New England youth, on the other hand,
were never _coureurs de bois_ nor _voyageurs_, but backwoodsmen and
sailors rather. Of all nations the English undoubtedly have proved
hitherto that they had the most business here.
Yet I am not sure but I have most sympathy with that spirit of adventure
which distinguished the French and Spaniards of those days, and made
them especially the explorers of the American Continent,--which so
early carried the former to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi on the
north, and the latter to the same river on the south. It was long
before our frontiers reached their settlements in the West. So far as
inland discovery was concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English
was that of sailors who land but for a day, and their enterprise the
enterprise of traders.
There was apparently a greater equality of condition among the
habitans of Montmorenci County than in New England. They are an almost
exclusively agricultural, and so far independent population, each
family producing nearly all the necessaries of life for itself. If the
Canadian wants energy, perchance he possesses those virtues, social
and others, which the Yankee lacks, in which case he cannot be
regarded as a poor man.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] From McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary we learn that
"immediately beyond the Island of Orleans it is a mile broad; where
the Saguenay joins it, eighteen miles; at Point Peter, upward of
thirty; at the Bay of Seven Islands, seventy miles; and at the Island
of Anticosti (above three hundred and fifty miles from Quebec), it
rolls a flood into the ocean nearly one hundred miles across. "
CHAPTER IV
THE WALLS OF QUEBEC
After spending the night at a farmhouse in Chateau Richer, about a
dozen miles northeast of Quebec, we set out on our return to the city.
We stopped at the next house, a picturesque old stone mill, over the
_Chipre_,--for so the name sounded,--such as you will nowhere see in
the States, and asked the millers the age of the mill. They went
upstairs to call the master; but the crabbed old miser asked why we
wanted to know, and would tell us only for some compensation. I wanted
French to give him a piece of my mind. I had got enough to talk on a
pinch, but not to quarrel, so I had to come away, looking all I would
have said.
This was the utmost incivility we met with in Canada. In
Beauport, within a few miles of Quebec, we turned aside to look at a
church which was just being completed,--a very large and handsome
edifice of stone, with a green bough stuck in its gable, of some
significance to Catholics. The comparative wealth of the Church in
this country was apparent; for in this village we did not see one good
house besides. They were all humble cottages; and yet this appeared to
me a more imposing structure than any church in Boston. But I am no
judge of these things.
Reentering Quebec through St. John's Gate, we took a caleche in Market
Square for the Falls of the Chaudiere, about nine miles southwest of
the city, for which we were to pay so much, besides forty sous for
tolls. The driver, as usual, spoke French only. The number of these
vehicles is very great for so small a town. They are like one of our
chaises that has lost its top, only stouter and longer in the body,
with a seat for the driver where the dasher is with us, and broad
leather ears on each side to protect the riders from the wheel and
keep children from falling out. They had an easy jaunting look, which,
as our hours were numbered, persuaded us to be riders. We met with
them on every road near Quebec these days, each with its complement of
two inquisitive-looking foreigners and a Canadian driver, the former
evidently enjoying their novel experience, for commonly it is only the
horse whose language you do not understand; but they were one remove
further from him by the intervention of an equally unintelligible
driver. We crossed the St. Lawrence to Point Levi in a French-Canadian
ferry-boat, which was inconvenient and dirty, and managed with great
noise and bustle. The current was very strong and tumultuous; and the
boat tossed enough to make some sick, though it was only a mile
across; yet the wind was not to be compared with that of the day
before, and we saw that the Canadians had a good excuse for not taking
us over to the Isle of Orleans in a pirogue, however shiftless they
may be for not having provided any other conveyance. The route which
we took to the Chaudiere did not afford us those views of Quebec which
we had expected, and the country and inhabitants appeared less
interesting to a traveler than those we had seen.
