The Exploit Is One Of The Most Agreeable Which The Traveller Can Perform,
And The Thick Morning Mist Added To The Apparent Danger.
We steamed for
four or five miles farther down the river, when suddenly the great curtain
of mist was rolled up as by an invisible hand, and the scene which it
revealed was Montreal.
I never saw a city which looked so magnificent
from the water. It covers a very large extent of ground, which gently
slopes upwards from the lake-like river, and is backed by the Mountain, a
precipitous hill, 700 feet in height. It is decidedly foreign in
appearance, even from a distance. When the fog cleared away it revealed
this mountain, with the forest which covers it, all scarlet and purple;
the blue waters of the river hurried joyously along; the Green and
Belleisle mountains wore the rosy tints of dawn; the distances were bathed
in a purple glow; and the tin roofs, lofty spires, and cupolas of Montreal
flashed back the beams of the rising sun.
A lofty Gothic edifice, something from a distance like Westminster Abbey,
and handsome public buildings, with a superb wharf a mile long, of hewn
stone, present a very imposing appearance from the water. We landed from
the first lock of a ship-canal, and I immediately drove to the residence
of the Bishop of Montreal, a house near the mountain, in a very elevated
situation, and commanding a magnificent view. From the Bishop and his
family I received the greatest kindness, and have very agreeable
recollections of Montreal.
It was a most curious and startling change from the wooden erections, wide
streets, and the impress of novelty which pervaded everything I had seen
in the New World, to the old stone edifices, lofty houses, narrow streets,
and tin roofs of the city of Montreal. There are iron window-shutters,
convents with grated windows and long dead walls; there are narrow
thoroughfares, crowded with strangely-dressed habitans, and long
processions of priests. Then the French origin of the town contrasts
everywhere with the English occupation of it. There are streets - the Rue
St. Geneviève, the Rue St. Antoine, and the Rue St. François Xavier; there
are ancient customs and feudal privileges; Jesuit seminaries, and convents
of the Soeurs Gris and the Sulpicians; priests in long black dresses;
native carters in coats with hoods, woollen nightcaps, and coloured
sashes; and barristers pleading in the French language. Then there are
Manchester goods, in stores kept by bustling Yankees; soldiers lounge
about in the scarlet and rifle uniforms of England; Presbyterian tunes
sound from plain bald churches; the institutions are drawn alike from
Paris and Westminster; and the public vehicles partake of the fashions of
Lisbon and Long Acre. You hear "Place aux dames" on one side of the
street, and "g'lang" on the other; and the United States have
contributed their hotel system and their slang.
Montreal is an extraordinary place. It is alive with business and
enterprising traders, with soldiers, carters, and equipages. Through the
kindness of the Bishop, I saw everything of any interest in the town. The
first thing which attracted my attention was the magnificent view from the
windows of the See-house, over the wide St. Lawrence and the green
mountains of Vermont; the next, an immense pair of elaborately-worked
bronze gates, at a villa opposite, large enough for a royal residence. The
side-walks in the outskirts of the town were still of the villanous wood,
but in the streets they were very substantial, and, like the massive stone
houses, look as if they had lasted for two hundred years, and might last
for a thousand more. We visited, among other things, some schools - one,
the Normal School, an extremely interesting one, where it is intended to
train teachers, on Church-of-England principles. I was very much surprised
and pleased with the amount of solid information and high attainments of
the children, as evidenced by their composition, and answers to the Bishop
of Montreal's very difficult questions. They looked sallow and emaciated,
and, contrary to what I have observed in England, the girls seemed the
most intelligent. The Bishop has also established a library, where, for
the small sum of four shillings a year, people can regale themselves upon
a variety of works, from the volumes of Alison, not more ponderous in
appearance than matter, to the newspaper literature of the day.
The furriers' shops are by no means to be overlooked. There were sleigh-
robes of buffalo, bear, fox, wolf, and racoon, varying in price from six
to thirty guineas; and coats, leggings, gloves, and caps, rendered
necessary by the severity of a winter in which the thermometer often
stands at thirty degrees below zero. People vie with each other in the
costliness of their furs and sleigh equipments; a complete set sometimes
costing as much as a hundred guineas.
I went into the Romish cathedral, which is the largest Gothic building in
the New World. It was intended to be very imposing - it has succeeded in
being very extravagant; and if the architects intended that their work
should live in the admiration of succeeding generations, like York
Minster, Cologne, or Rouen, they have signally failed. Internally, the
effect of its vast size is totally destroyed by pews and galleries which
accommodate ten thousand people. There are some very large and very
hideous paintings in it, in a very inferior style of sign-painting. The
ceiling is painted bright blue, and the high altar was one mass of gaudy
tinsel decoration. In one corner there was a picture of babies being
devoured by pigs, and trampled upon by horses, and underneath it was a box
for offerings, with "This is the fate of the children of China" upon it.
By it was a wooden box, hung with faded pink calico, containing small
wooden representations, in the Noah's-ark style, of dogs, horses, and
pigs, and a tall man holding up a little dog by its hind legs.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 70 of 128
Words from 70698 to 71706
of 129941
