No More Learning

As I walked on the
glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the soldiers' dwellings in
the rock, and was further soothed and affected by the sight of a
soldier's cat walking up a cleated plank into a high loophole designed
for _mus-catry_, as serene as Wisdom herself, and with a gracefully
waving motion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of pleasantness
and all her paths were peace. Scaling a slat fence, where a small
force might have checked me, I got out of the esplanade into the
Governor's Garden, and read the well-known inscription on Wolfe and
Montcalm's monument, which for saying much in little, and that to the
purpose, undoubtedly deserved the prize medal which it received:--

MORTEM . VIRTUS . COMMUNEM .
FAMAM . HISTORIA .
MONUMENTUM . POSTERITAS .
DEDIT

(Valor gave them one death, history one fame, posterity one monument. )
The Government Garden has for nosegays, amid kitchen vegetables,
beside the common garden flowers, the usual complement of cannon
directed toward some future and possible enemy. I then returned up St.
Louis Street to the esplanade and ramparts there, and went round the
Upper Town once more, though I was very tired, this time on the
_inside_ of the wall; for I knew that the wall was the main thing in
Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money, and therefore I must make
the most of it. In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have
in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is
true. Moreover, I cannot say but I yielded in some measure to the
soldier instinct, and, having but a short time to spare, thought it
best to examine the wall thoroughly, that I might be the better
prepared if I should ever be called that way again in the service of
my country. I committed all the gates to memory, in their order, which
did not cost me so much trouble as it would have done at the
hundred-gated city, there being only five; nor were they so hard to
remember as those seven of Boeotian Thebes; and, moreover, I thought
that, if seven champions were enough against the latter, one would be
enough against Quebec, though he bore for all armor and device only an
umbrella and a bundle.
I took the nunneries as I went, for I had
learned to distinguish them by the blinds; and I observed also the
foundling hospitals and the convents, and whatever was attached to, or
in the vicinity of the walls. All the rest I omitted, as naturally as
one would the inside of an inedible shell-fish. These were the only
pearls, and the wall the only mother-of-pearl for me. Quebec is
chiefly famous for the thickness of its parietal bones. The technical
terms of its conchology may stagger a beginner a little at first, such
as _banlieue_, _esplanade_, _glacis_, _ravelin_, _cavalier_, etc. ,
etc. , but with the aid of a comprehensive dictionary you soon learn
the nature of your ground. I was surprised at the extent of the
artillery barracks, built so long ago,--_Casernes Nouvelles_, they
used to be called,--nearly six hundred feet in length by forty in
depth, where the sentries, like peripatetic philosophers, were so
absorbed in thought as not to notice me when I passed in and out at
the gates. Within are "small arms of every description, sufficient for
the equipment of twenty thousand men," so arranged as to give a
startling _coup d'oeil_ to strangers. I did not enter, not wishing
to get a black eye; for they are said to be "in a state of complete
repair and readiness for immediate use. " Here, for a short time, I
lost sight of the wall, but I recovered it again on emerging from the
barrack yard. There I met with a Scotchman who appeared to have
business with the wall, like myself; and, being thus mutually drawn
together by a similarity of tastes, we had a little conversation _sub
moenibus_, that is, by an angle of the wall, which sheltered us. He
lived about thirty miles northwest of Quebec; had been nineteen years
in the country; said he was disappointed that he was not brought to
America after all, but found himself still under British rule and
where his own language was not spoken; that many Scotch, Irish, and
English were disappointed in like manner, and either went to the
States or pushed up the river to Canada West, nearer to the States,
and where their language was spoken. He talked of visiting the States
some time; and, as he seemed ignorant of geography, I warned him that
it was one thing to visit the State of Massachusetts, and another to
visit the State of California. He said it was colder there than usual
at that season, and he was lucky to have brought his thick togue, or
frock-coat, with him; thought it would snow, and then be pleasant and
warm. That is the way we are always thinking.