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traordinarily beautiful. Near the waterfall is a cave, where the 
soil is either sunk, or washed away by the water; it is a narrow 
deep crack in the earth, which you cannot behold without shud¬ 
dering. When the water is high, there are three falls. The mid¬ 
dle one precipitates directly down, the two others cross over the 
middle one. The drought, however, of the summer of 1825, and 
a canal, which drains the water from the river to drive saw and 
other mills, has lessened the quantity of water in the river, so that 
only one of the three falls has water, and instead of seeing the 
other two, you perceive the bare rock. This rock is slate. At 
Quebec and Point Levi, it is limestone; in Quebec it is inter¬ 
spersed with silicious crystals, hence its name Cape Diamond. 
The stones of Point Levi are used for building houses and fortifi¬ 
cations; all copings are made of this stone. Most of the trees in 
this neighbourhood are cedar. Below the falls of St. Lawrence 
they have constructed a little harbour by means of two piers, 
whence they trade in boards on account of its nearness to the saw¬ 
mills. About a mile and a half above the great falls, in the same 
river, are others. The channel at these falls is very narrow be¬ 
tween the rocks, and formed like stairs; on this account, they are 
called the natural stairs; resembling very much, though in minia¬ 
ture, the falls of Trenton, near Utica, and are situated in a thick 
forest of fir, pine, and cedar trees. The road from the bridge to 
this place, and hence to the turnpike, is a very obscure foot¬ 
path through the woods. 
On the second and last day of my sojourn at Quebec, I went 
to the parade, escorted by Colonels Durnford and Duchesnay. * I 
was pleasantly taken by surprise, when I found the whole garri¬ 
son under arms. The commanding officers wished to show me 
their corps. On the right wing stood two companies of artillery, 
then a company of sappers and minors, after this, the sixty-eighth, 
and lastly, the seventy-first regiment of infantry. The last is a 
light regiment, and consists of Scotch Highlanders; it appeared 
to be in particularly good condition. This regiment is not dressed 
in the Highland uniform, which was only worn by some of the 
buglemen. It has a very good band of buglemen, who wear cu¬ 
rious caps, made of blue woollen, bordered below with red and 
white stripes. The troops defiled twice before me. 
On the 6th of September we sat out in the steam-boat for Mon¬ 
treal. Sir Francis sent us his carriage, which was very useful to 
the ladies. On the dock stood a company of the sixty-eighth re¬ 
giment, with their flag displayed as a guard of honour, which I 
immediately dismissed. The fortification saluted us with twenty- 
one guns; this caused a very fine echo from the mountains. Night 
soon set in, but we had sufficient light to take leave of the mag¬ 
nificent vicinity of Quebec. 
