66 A TRIP TO THE LA VAL. 



keel boat, what they call a hoite ; and sure enough it is 

 a box, as long as the width of the boat, some seven feet, 

 about two and a half feet deep at the lowest part, and 

 rounding to the shape of the bottom, and three and a 

 half feet wide. Into that they crawl, and two men and 

 a boy have been known to sleep comfortably. 



Such was the vessel that was destined to bear us sixty 

 miles down the broad St. Lawrence, and was soon tear- 

 ing along under the fierce wind that crested every wave 

 with foam. Fortunately, our course lay along the wea- 

 ther shore, for our open cockle-shell -would not have lived 

 a minute exposed to the full sweep of the blast and the 

 sea it must have raised on the other side of the river, or 

 even a few miles from shore. Once in a while, a little 

 dash of spray would come hissing on board, or fling itself 

 into our faces ; but as the wind was free, we could carry 

 on sail as long as she could keep above the waves, or 

 until she carried the masts out of her. Even that 

 ungainly vessel, driving on in the seething waters, car- 

 rying the canoes on her deck, and with her sails straining 

 in the blast, must have been more than picturesque. 



On we tore, skirting the dreary, inhospitable coast past 

 the village of Tadousac, past the Moulinbaud, the Esco- 

 main, a river once famous for its salmon, but no longer 

 so ; past the Patte de Lievre, a rock of the shape of the 

 hare's foot, where many years ago the sea gave iip its 

 dead, and a cross now stands to mark the grave of the 

 lost nameless one ; and the last puffs of the wearied 

 blast urged us quietly into the outlet of Sault de Cochon. 

 At the mouth of this river there is a steep fall, down 

 which once a hog hastily descended much against her 



