CACOUNA. 47 



southwestern extremity, which spring dries only in the warmest 

 weather. About and around nearly all of these islands reefs and 

 rocks are everywhere visible. I am not confident that we passed 

 through the narrows between the Pilgrims and Hare Island 

 Bank, but think that we did ; at any rate, when about opposite 

 Riviere du Loup we had Hare Island on our left. The two oblong 

 islands called Hare and White, the latter just east of the former and 

 very much smaller, with their reefs, which are quite extensive, are 

 about twenty miles long ; of their nature I was unable to judge. I was 

 much interested in spying the distant horizon of Riviere du Loup, 

 formerly so much frequented by the fashionable of Canada — as 

 well as elsewhere — a village of great attractions I am told ; while 

 not far from it Cacouna, hardly a hundred miles from Quebec, the 

 now favorite resort of the people of Canada, with its many elegant 

 establishments and cosey summer residences graces this part of the 

 coast. Many sportsmen take pleasant fishing trips and frequent 

 baths in the chosen resorts and not cold waters about here ; while 

 the temperature, they tell me, is delightful. It is not long — not 

 twenty years ago — since this place was of comparatively little ac- 

 count and notice, with only a rocky peninsula some four hundred 

 feet high to commend it to the scientist, hardly the tourist. It is 

 now a fashionable resort. 



We had hesitated for some time as to whether it were best to an- 

 chor where we at last did, or by Red Island just on our left, named 

 from the color of its soil and rocks, which is a low, flat island of 

 little importance, when we decided in favor of the former place. 

 At any rate I remembered that we were opposite the noted and far 

 famed Saguenay river, the largest on this part of the coast, rising 

 in lake St. John, about ninety miles directly west from the river's 

 mouth. A place of so much interest and importance needs better 

 words than I can give, having never even seen it, so I will copy from 

 another author, though it is not my purpose to give you other 

 peoples' adventures and descriptions as a rule. 



In describing the mouth of the river, which is full of shoals and 

 reefs, he says : ''Saguenay river has an entrance between Vaches 



