The Halcyon in Canada. 



545 



Laurentian ranges, dark and formidable, arrested the eye. Quebec, or 

 the walled part of it, is situated on a point of land shaped not unlike 

 the human foot, looking north-east, the higher and bolder side being 

 next the river, with the main part of the town on the northern slope 

 toward the St. Charles. Its toes are well down in the mud where 

 this stream joins the St. Lawrence, while the citadel is high on the 

 instep and commands the whole field. The grand Battery is a little 



IN THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 



below, on the 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 north- 

 eastward 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 per- 

 pendicular, 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 north-east 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 man)- miles, 

 called the Beauport slopes. The division of the land into uniform 



tllelograms, as in France, was a marked feature, and is so 

 throughout the Dominion. A road ran through the midst of it lined 

 with trees, and leading to tin- falls of the Montmorency. I imagine 



