80 THE ST. KEUIS AND SAT5AX.U S. 



miles a good road; while our chance companions proved 

 to be most agreeable. For the first third of the distance our 

 way lay through an ordinary, cultivated, tanning region; 

 then we began to climb the Coot hills and at length the 

 mountains, in a rougher and more rocky and less cultivated 

 region, until at length, in the density of the foresj, we lost 

 all reckoning. 



The first mountain that we ascended, in the open conn 

 try, gave to our view the broad, vast valley of the St. Law 

 rence, in panorama. We climbed and straggled up on 

 foot, halting and turning as often to catch the changing 

 scenes aa In re-l from our \\eary labors. Far otV to the 

 north, north-west and north-east extended below us 

 the plain, in field and woodland and town, the shining hell 

 of the distant river faintly ^leamimr under the .July sun ; 

 and the receding Canadian hills, in the remote distance, at 

 length mingled their ha/.y blue with the tenderer a/.ure of 

 tlie sky. The higher we climbed, the grander the scene 

 and the wider the scope of vision, although the barrier of 

 ha/y blue far'otf continually lifted its trout, a shore to the 

 sea of sunshine in the valley below. 



There wasa strange thing. Here and tin-re, in the valley 

 plain, arose, bold and rugged, like a \ast boulder, a moun- 

 tain with almost perpendicular sides that were bare and 

 looked to be rock, -detached palisades, or. lost and forsaken 

 antediluvian monarchs with their rugged forest crown- yet 

 on their heads. Or, were they massive towers of Habel, 

 built in some mad freak by the old Sons of the North, or 

 of defense against Odin and Thor? Whatever 



