32 ARRIVAL AT PORT LEVIS. 



tlemen of the, perhaps, loafing profession, — though I may be do- 

 ing said gentlemen a great injustice, for which I beg many pardons, 

 not intending my remark as an insult, but rather using the word in 

 place of any knowledge of the occupation of said persons who 

 were strangers to me, — whose inquisitiveness led them to assemble 

 about me and ask various questions, I emptied my pockets on the 

 sill of a window of the station house and proceeded to do the 

 specimens up carefully in papers that I might the more easily carry 

 them, and having placed them in a satchel, I began to look about me 

 for the train. Before long it approached the station, and after stand- 

 ing still in front of the door for half an hour or so, during which 

 time we transferred our portable luggage and ourselves to a 

 comfortable seat near the rear of the last car, it slowly started off, 

 and again we were on the move. 



The train was a slow one, and after occupying half of the after- 

 noon reading I spent the greater part of the remainder of the trip 

 on the rear platform watching the nature of the country through 

 which we were passing. The air was cool and clear, and veg- 

 etation and foliage still wore their summer dress, but in place of 

 the usual moist feeling which New England air possesses, the words 

 dry and crisp seem to express, to me at least, the condition of 

 earth and air in this "cold temperate " region of the globe. Stand- 

 ing thus and enjoying the comfort and ease with which the car 

 slowly proceeded through the varied scenes along the passage, the 

 shades of evening approached, and as darkness came on, passing 

 through the outskirts of what was apparently a manufacturing vil- 

 lage, by day the scene of industry, but now a confusion of shops, 

 sheds, wharves and buildings, as seen thus in the darkness of night, 

 we came at last to the celebrated Port Levis. 



It was night when we reached this ancient military station, and 

 being in great haste to see to the transporting of our luggage to the 

 ferry boat which was then waiting for us and the other passengers 

 who were to be transported to the Quebec side, there was no op- 

 portunity of going about the place at all with the view of exam- 

 ining its huge fortresses of military fame, and of which we had read, 



