224 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



down into its mightier brother that is sharply de- 

 fined from the deck of the steamer. The two rivers 

 seem to touch, but not to blend, so proud and 

 haughty is this chieftain from the north. On the 

 mountains above Tadousac one could see banks of 

 sand left by the ancient seas. Naked rock and ster- 

 ile sand are all the Tadousacker has to make his 

 garden of, so far as I observed. Indeed, there is no 

 soil along the Saguenay until you get to Ha-ha Bay, 

 and then there is not much, and poor quality at 

 that. 



What the ancient fires did not burn the ancient 

 seas have washed away. I overheard an English 

 resident say to a Yankee tourist, "You will think 

 you are approaching the end of the world up here." 

 It certainly did suggest something apocryphal or 

 antemundane, — a segment of the moon or of a cleft 

 asteroid, matter dead or wrecked. The world-build- 

 ers must have had their foundry up in this neigh- 

 borhood, and the bed of this river was doubtless the 

 channel through which the molten granite flowed. 

 Some mischief-loving god has let in the sea while 

 things were yet red-hot, and there has been a time 

 here. But the channel still seems filled with water 

 from the mid- Atlantic, cold and blue-black, and in 

 places between seven and eight thousand feet deep 

 (one and a half miles). In fact the enormous depth 

 of the Saguenay is one of the wonders of physical 

 geography. It is as great a marvel in its way as 

 Niagara. 



The ascent of the river is made by night, and I 



