Other Objects
Developed Themselves As We Steamed Down To The Wharf.
There were huge
rafts, some three or four acres in extent, which, having survived the
perils which had beset
Them on their journey from the forests of the
Ottawa, were now moored along the base of the lofty cliffs which, under
the name of the Heights of Abraham, have a world-wide celebrity. There
were huge, square-sided, bluff-bowed, low-masted ships, lying at anchor in
interminable lines, and little, dirty, vicious-looking steam-tugs twirling
in and out among them; and there were grim-looking muzzles of guns
protruding through embrasures, and peripatetic fur caps and bayonets
behind parapets of very solid masonry.
Above all, shadowing all, and steeping all, was the thickest fog ever seen
beyond the sound of Bow-bells. It lay thick and heavy on Point Diamond,
dimming the lustre of the bayonets of the sentinels as they paced the
lofty bastions, and looked down into the abyss of fog below. It lay yet
heavier on the rapid St. Lawrence, and dripped from the spars and rigging
of ships. It hung over and enveloped the town, where, combined with smoke,
it formed a yellow canopy; and damp and chill it penetrated the flag of
England, weighing it down in heavy folds, as though ominous of impending
calamity.
Slowly winding our tortuous way among multitudinous ships, all vamped in
drizzling mist, we were warped to the wharf, which was covered with a
mixture of mud and coal-dust, permeated by the universal fog.
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