190 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



Vancouver for Liverpool, and we reached Quebec at 3.30 the 

 next afternoon. As the ship stayed here the night to coal, I 

 determined to sleep on shore and see this celebrated city. 

 Taking my bag in my hand, I walked to the town. On my 

 way I saw a gardener at work — an Irishman — and inquired 

 for a quiet place for a night's lodging. He directed me to a 

 small private hotel — the other hotels, he said, were too noisy 

 and too dear. Securing a room and leaving my bag, I 

 walked to Dyffryn Terrace, where is the monument to Wolfe 

 and Montcalm. Then up to the ramparts of the citadel, from 

 which there is a grand view of the river and the country 

 round, and where the strength of the position can be well 

 seen. For dinner they gave me beef-steak pie, quite English, 

 the first real homely pie I have met with on the American 

 continent. I then strolled into the town and bought a few 

 trifles in the shops. Everywhere they were talking French. 

 The terraces and gardens with electric lights were very 

 pretty. 



Next morning I went out at 7 a.m., called on the Irish 

 gardener again, and asked the way to the best part of the 

 town. He offered to show me : went along St. Louis Street 

 and the Grande Allde by the new Parliamentary Buildings, 

 which are very large and handsome ; a new Drill Hall, 

 fantastic Mooresque ; then toj the open down and the Plains 

 of Abraham. The gardener said there were many Irish and 

 Scotch in Quebec, but more French than all the others. He 

 thought they could not become independent, because they 

 could not pay their share of the Canadian Debt. I suggested 

 that perhaps France would help pay it in order to get back 

 their old colony. Yes, he thought they might some day ; but 

 he did not think the French people wanted that. He told 

 me he had been in Quebec forty-six years, and the winters 

 were not nearly so cold as they used to be. He is sure of it. 

 Noses and ears were often frozen and lost then ; now one 

 never hears of such a thing. 



I got back to breakfast soon after eight, and then 

 descended to the lower town by the elevator, and to the 

 wharf, where a tender took us on board in a drizzling rain 



