246 THE HALCYON IN CANADA. 



We were off early in the morning, and before we 

 had gone two miles met a party from Quebec who 

 must have been driving nearly all night to give the 

 black flies an early breakfast. Before long a slow 

 rain set in; we saw another party who had taken 

 refuge in a house in a grove. When the rain had 

 become so brisk that we began to think of seeking 

 shelter ourselves, we passed a party of young men 

 and boys sixteen of them in a cart turning back to 

 town, water-soaked and heavy (for the poor horse 

 had all it co'ald pull), but merry and good-natured. 

 We paused a while at the farm-house where we had 

 got our hay on going out, were treated to a drink of 

 milk and some wild red cherries, and when the rain 

 slackened drove on, and by ten o'clock saw the city 

 eight miles distant, with the sun shining upon its 

 steep tinned roofs. 



The next morning we set out per steamer for the 

 Saguenay, and entered upon the second phase of 

 our travels, but with less relish than we could have 

 wished. Scenery-hunting is the least satisfying pur- 

 suit I have ever engaged in. What one sees in his 

 necessary travels, or doing his work, or going a-fish- 

 ing, seems worth while, but the famous view you 

 go out in cold blood to admire is quite apt to elude 

 you. Nature loves to enter a door another hand has 

 opened ; a mountain view, or a water-fall, I have 

 noticed, never looks better than when one has just 

 been warmed up by the capture of a big trout. If 

 we had been bound for some salmon-stream up the 



