194 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



brink of the instep, so to speak, and the promenader 

 looks down several hundred feet into the tops of the 

 chimneys of this part of the lower town, and upon 

 the great river sweeping by northeastward like 

 another Amazon. The heel of our misshapen foot 

 extends indefinitely toward Montreal. Upon it, on 

 a level with the citadel, are the Plains of Abraham. 

 It was up its high, almost perpendicular, sides that 

 Wolfe clambered with his army, and stood in the 

 rear of his enemy one pleasant September morning 

 over a hundred years ago. 



To the north and northeast of Quebec, and in full 

 view from the upper parts of the city, lies a rich belt 

 of agricultural country, sloping gently toward the 

 river, and running parallel with it for many miles, 

 called the Beauport slopes. The division of the 

 land into uniform parallelograms, as in France, was 

 a marked feature, and is so throughout the Domin- 

 ion. A road ran through the midst of it lined with 

 trees, and leading to the falls of the Montmorenci. 

 I imagine that this section is the garden of Quebec. 

 Beyond it rose the mountains. Our eyes looked 

 wistfully toward them, for we had decided to pene- 

 trate the Canadian woods in that direction. 



One hundred and twenty-five miles from Quebec 

 as the loon flies, almost due north over unbroken 

 spruce forests, lies Lake St. John, the cradle of the 

 terrible Saguenay. On the map it looks like a great 

 cuttlefish with its numerous arms and tentacula reach- 

 ing out in all directions into the wilds. It is a large 

 oval body of water thirty miles in its greatest diam- 



