THE HALCYON IN CANADA 223 



the water, thougli it is six or seven miles away. 

 There is no sign of the river above- or below but this 

 trembling white curtain of foam and spray. 



It was very sultry when we left Quebec, but 

 about noon we struck much clearer and cooler air, 

 and soon after ran into an immense wave or puff of 

 fog that came drifting up the river and set all the 

 fog-guns booming along shore. We were soon 

 through it into clear, crisp space, with room enough 

 for any eye to range in. On the south the shores of 

 the great river appear low and uninteresting, but on 

 the north they are bold and striking enough to make 

 it up, — high, scarred, unpeopled mountain ranges 

 the whole way. The points of interest to the eye 

 in the broad expanse of water were the white por- 

 poises that kept rolling, rolling in the distance, all 

 day. They came up like the perimeter of a great 

 wheel that turns slowly and then disappears. From 

 mid-forenoon we could see far ahead an immense 

 column of yellow smoke rising up and flattening out 

 upon the sky and stretching away beyond the hori- 

 zon. Its form was that of some aquatic plant that 

 shoots a stem up through the water, and spreads its 

 bioad leaf upon the surface. This smoky lily-pad 

 must have reached nearly to Maine. It proved to be 

 in the Indian country in the mountains beyond the 

 mouth of the Saguenay, and must have represented 

 an immense destruction of forest timber. 



The steamer is two hours crossing the St. Law- 

 rence from Riviere du Loup to Tadousac. The 

 Saguenay pushes a broad sweep of dark blue water 



