Having
secured the only
unengaged
berths in the Lord Sydenham steamer, which
was to leave Quebec before sundown, and being resolved, now that I had
seen somewhat of the country, to get an idea of the city, I proceeded
to walk round the Upper Town, or fortified portion, which is two miles
and three quarters in circuit, alone, as near as I could get to the
cliff and the walls, like a rat looking for a hole; going round by the
southwest, where there is but a single street between the cliff and
the water, and up the long wooden stairs, through the suburbs
northward to the King's Woodyard, which I thought must have been a
long way from his fireplace, and under the cliffs of the St.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
Evidently a picture painted on mist for the men
and animals that came to the falls to look at; but for what special
purpose beyond this, I know not. At the farthest point in this ride,
and when most inland, unexpectedly at a turn in the road we descried
the frowning citadel of Quebec in the horizon, like the beak of a bird
of prey. We returned by the river road under the bank, which is very
high, abrupt, and rocky. When we were opposite to Quebec, I was
surprised to see that in the Lower Town, under the shadow of the rock,
the lamps were lit, twinkling not unlike crystals in a cavern, while
the citadel high above, and we, too, on the south shore, were in broad
daylight. As we were too late for the ferry-boat that night, we put up
at a _maison de pension_ at Point Levi. The usual two-story stove was
here placed against an opening in the partition shaped like a
fireplace, and so warmed several rooms. We could not understand their
French here very well, but the _potage_ was just like what we had had
before. There were many small chambers with doorways, but no doors.
The walls of our chamber, all around and overhead, were neatly ceiled,
and the timbers cased with wood unpainted. The pillows were checkered
and tasseled, and the usual long-pointed red woolen or worsted
nightcap was placed on each. I pulled mine out to see how it was made.
It was in the form of a double cone, one end tucked into the other;
just such, it appeared, as I saw men wearing all day in the streets.
Probably I should have put it on if the cold had been then, as it is
sometimes there, thirty or forty degrees below zero.
When we landed at Quebec the next morning a man lay on his back on the
wharf, apparently dying, in the midst of a crowd and directly in the
path of the horses, groaning, "O ma conscience!" I thought that he
pronounced his French more distinctly than any I heard, as if the
dying had already acquired the accents of a universal language.
Having
secured the only
unengaged
berths in the Lord Sydenham steamer, which
was to leave Quebec before sundown, and being resolved, now that I had
seen somewhat of the country, to get an idea of the city, I proceeded
to walk round the Upper Town, or fortified portion, which is two miles
and three quarters in circuit, alone, as near as I could get to the
cliff and the walls, like a rat looking for a hole; going round by the
southwest, where there is but a single street between the cliff and
the water, and up the long wooden stairs, through the suburbs
northward to the King's Woodyard, which I thought must have been a
long way from his fireplace, and under the cliffs of the St.
Charles,
where the drains issue under the walls, and the walls are loopholed
for musketry; so returning by Mountain Street and Prescott Gate to the
Upper Town. Having found my way by an obscure passage near the St.
Louis Gate to the glacis on the north of the citadel proper,--I
believe that I was the only visitor then in the city who got in
there,--I enjoyed a prospect nearly as good as from within the citadel
itself, which I had explored some days before. 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.
