I8 7 2.] 



THE SAGUENAY. 



315 



blueberry kind, a few ripe ; and strawberries in such rich 

 profusion, that we hardly knew how to leave them. It re- 

 minded me of the Wicklow mountains. The scene was so 

 unexpectedly lovely : the white, glittering floor ; each rock 

 fringed with such rich flowers, fruits, and green; the villages 

 lying at our feet, with their pretty white homesteads, and 

 tall spires ringing for Mass [two priests had come up by the 

 steamer] ; the Wharfe-like river and pretty wooden frame-work 

 bridge ; meadows stretching out into the lake ; roads cut 

 through the forest, looking like threads in the distance; then 

 the gloomy rocks across, bright sun and dark clouds — that we 

 could not help kneeling down, to thank the Lord, and pray 

 for all the dear ones. As soon as we had had our fill of 

 strawberries (each picking for the other), we descended to the 

 bridge, saw the brown water dashing over stones above, and 

 working lumber-works below, and went along the meadow- 

 banks to the point we had fixed on for bathing. . . . We left 

 at 10 a.m. I should have liked to ramble here a good deal; 

 and if I ever come again with you, will do so. . . . 



" Now for the Saguenay. Fancy a country made up of great 

 swelling Laurentian hills, closely packed together, with scarcely 

 a valley between; then imagine a vast earthquake making a 

 huge cleft right deep into the bowels of the earth, as far as 

 from Manchester to Liverpool and back, from one to two miles 

 broad all the way, and with gaps extending here and there a 

 few miles further, deeper than any waters near the British Isles, 

 like the mid-Atlantic : then fancy this cleft filled up to the sea 

 level with deep brown water, and connected with the great 

 St. Lawrence valley. Imagine, in the course of ages, the 

 surface of the rocks variously disintegrated, springs percolating, 

 atoms of soil forming in clefts, and, lastly, every cranny filled 

 with roots of trees, which crowd each other, bakncing their 

 straight stems with equally poised branches, and shooting 

 upwards to an unusual height . . . and the same behind and 

 above incessantly. In some districts the fires [in 1870] burnt 

 to the water's edge, and you see nothing but charred stems 

 and a two years' growth of rich green. In other places, the 



