34 ARRIVAL IN QUEBEC. 



bales, boxes, and bags of luggage which nearly filled it, and the 

 passengers' rooms small and full of angles and corners ; every- 

 where a strong smell of closeness overladen with tobacco smoke 

 filled the air, and moving about was attended with a great deal 

 of difficulty. Congratulating myself that I had secured as airy 

 a place as anybody, and viewing the scene as I have attempted to 

 describe it, we slowly made the landing and were in Quebec. 



The lower city of Quebec presents very few attractions by night 

 to a stranger ; the streets and the sidewalks are narrow, while both 

 are muddy and slippery at this season of the year, especially 

 if it has lately rained. The cooped-up feeling that it gives you 

 to land in one of these narrow alley streets and find that you 

 know nobody and nobody knows you, that you don't know where to 

 go and a dozen cab drivers and hotel porters all say that you are 

 going with them, is a peculiar one and best appreciated by anybody 

 that has been in such a place and obliged to decide immediately 

 what to do, or have it decided for him by having his baggage 

 and himself suddenly ushered into a cab and the door shut, — this 

 is anything but pleasant. Though I did not undergo this last ex- 

 perience literally, it was so near becoming such that the cab started 

 off with the luggage ; while, after a few inquiries and some compli- 

 cated directions, I started off to find the wharf at which the vessel 

 destined to convey me away was moored. My companions and 

 myself went together and after travelling through various streets and 

 turning down many side alleys, all of which presented the same 

 dirty, narrow, and contracted general appearance, bestrewn with 

 plenty of mud and nearly solitary, we approached a shed-like open- 

 ing on the opposite side of a very dirty street, through which we 

 passed and emerged on a long wharf, on either side of which were 

 vessels closely packed and in process some of lading and some 

 of unlading. Not knowing which one contained the object of our 

 search, — the captain, with whom we had not yet even taken pas- 

 sage, — we hailed a man standing by and inquired of him ; from his 

 reply, only given after the question had been repeated in French, we 

 found the vessel, aroused some of the crew, and put to them our 



