30 The River S^i^iienay. 



experienced when they first entered it, supposing it still the 

 river, until their shallop grounded on the north-western 

 shore. At the northern head of it is another settlement 

 called Bagotville. Between these two places the Saguenay 

 is rather shallow, (when compared with the remainder of its 

 course,) and varies in width from two and a half to three 

 miles. The tide is observable as far north as Chicoutimi, 

 a:nd this entire section of the river is navigable for ships of 

 the largest class, whose legitimate home is the ocean, but 

 which ascend thus far for lumber. 



That portion of the Saguenay extending from Ha ! Ha ! 

 Bay to the St. Lawrence, a distance of from fifty to sixty 

 miles, is greatly distinguished for its wild and picturesque 

 scenery. The shores are composed principally of granite, 

 and every bend presents to view an imposing bluff, the 

 majority of which are from eight to fifteen hundred feet 

 high. And generally speaking these towering bulwarks are 

 not content to loom perpendicularly into the air, but they 

 must needs bend over, as if to look at their own features 

 reflected in the water below. Awful beyond expression is it 

 in sailing along the Saguenay, to raise the eyes heavenward, 

 and behold, hanging directly overhead, a mass of granite 

 apparently ready to totter and fall, and weighing perhaps a 

 million tons. Nowhere else have we ever experienced such 

 a sense of human littleness, unless it be at the base of Table 

 Rock at Niagara. Descending from Ha ! Ha ! Bay, a per- 

 pendicular rock, nine hundred feet high, is the abrupt 

 termination of a lofty plateau called The Tableau, a column 

 of dark-coloured granite, 600 feet high by 300 wide, its sides 

 as smooth as if they had just received the polishing stroke 

 from the artisan's chisel. Statue Point is another gem of 

 scenery; but what pen can describe the stupendous pro- 

 monotories. Trinity Point and Cape Eternity } Thewater 

 is as deep five feet from their base, as it is in the centre of 

 the stream, and from actual measurement, many portions of 



