88 Montreal to Quebec. 



always the case, and you may be tossed about for hours on 

 the ice, landing at last far from your destination. But, with 

 all these perils, it is seldom a canoe is lost, and a fatality on 

 the passage is hitherto unknown. This "canoeing" employs 

 numbers who would otherwise be idle, and is quite a science 

 of its own. When the ice bridge takes, a road across is 

 soon formed, which generally holds till April. The old 

 means of transit by canoe, however, is almost one of the 

 things of the past ; a strong iron-plated steamer, the Arctic, 

 having been built specially for use as a winter ferry when 

 the ice bridge is not formed. During the summer months 

 the ferry boats make continuous trips. The town originally 

 was named after Henri de Levis, Due de Ventadour, a lineal 

 descendant of the house of Israel, if a family picture quoted 

 by I'Abbe Ferland in his " Cotirs d' Histoire die Canada!' is 

 evidence of such matters. The churches, both English and 

 Roman Catholic, nestling up among the hills, give a pleasing 

 and finished appearance to the scene. It has been noticed 

 in history as the point from which Quebec was assailed 

 several times, though unsuccessfully. 



M. De Gaspd in his " Les Anciens Canadiens" has ren- 

 dered this spot noteworthy, from a tradition respecting an 

 iron cage which was dug up here and exhibited in 1850, fall- 

 ing eventually into the hands of Barnum, in whose museum 

 the "Point Levi relic," as it was styled, remained on view 

 a long time, where next to the woolly horse, the Aztecs, and 

 other modern wonders, it attracted considerable attention. 

 It is supposed to have been the instrument in which Marie 

 Corriveau, the poisoner, called by LeMoine the Canadian 

 Lafarge, expiated her crimes in 1763 by being publicly 

 starved to death, fastened in this cage to a gibbet erected close 

 by the spot where the temperance monument now stands. 



Another mile and the traveller finds himself in Quebec, 

 ready for another tour, which can be taken from Point Levi 

 through the Eastern Townships back to Montreal again. 



