THE SAGUENAY AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 165 



Saguenay ; to raise his eye heavenward and behold hang- 

 ing directly over his head, a mass of granite apparently 

 ready to totter and fall, and weighing jjerhaps a million 

 tons. Terrible and sublime, beyond the imagery of the 

 most daring poet, are these cliffs ; and while they proclaim 

 the omnipotent power of God, they at the same time 

 whisper into the ear of man, that he is but as the moth 

 which flutters in the noontide air. And yet is it not 

 enough to fill the heart of man with holy pride and un- 

 bounded love, to remember that the soul within him shall 

 have but commenced its existence when all the mountains 

 of the world shall be consumed as a scroll ? 



" ' It is to the Saguenay that I am indebted for one of the 

 most imposing storm pictur'es that I ever witnessed. It 

 had been a most oppressive day, and as I was passing up 

 the river at a late hour in the afternoon, a sudden gust of 

 wind came rushing down the stream, causing my Indian 

 companion to bow as if in prayer, and then to urge our 

 frail canoe towards a little rocky island upon which we 

 immediately landed. Soon as we had surmounted our 

 refuge, the sk}^ was overcast with a pall of blackness which 

 completely enveloped the cliffs on either side, and gave the 

 roaring waters a death-like hue. Then broke forth from 

 above our heads the heavy roar of thunder, and as it 

 gradually increased in compass, and became more threaten- 

 ing and impetuous, its voUies were answered by a thousand 

 echoes which seemed to have been startled from every crag 



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