Then The Fierce Sun Fell On The Bald,
Baking Rocks, With Its Crisped Mosses And Parched Lichens.
Two centuries
and-a-half have quickened the solitude with swarming life, covered the
deep bosom of the river with barge and steamer and gliding sail, and
reared cities and villages on the site of forests; but nothing can destroy
the surpassing grandeur of the scene.
"Grasp the savin anchored in the fissure, lean over the brink of the
precipice, and look downward, a little to the left, on the belt of woods
which covers the strand between the water and the base of the cliffs. Here
a gang of axe-men are at work, and Point Levi and Orleans echo the crash
of falling trees.
"These axe-men were pioneers of an advancing host, - advancing, it is true,
with feeble and uncertain progress: priests, soldiers, peasants, feudal
scutcheons, royal insignia. Not the Middle Age, but engendered of it by
the stronger life of modern centralization; sharply stamped with parental
likeness, heir to parental weakness and parental force.
"A few weeks passed, and a pile of wooden buildings rose on the brink of
the St. Lawrence, on or near the site of the market-place of the Lower
Town of Quebec. The pencil of Champlain, always regardless of proportion
and perspective, has preserved its semblance. A strong wooden wall,
surmounted by a gallery loop-holed for musketry, enclosed three buildings,
containing quarters for himself and his men, together with a court-yard,
from one side of which rose a tall dove-cot, like a belfry. A moat
surrounded the whole, and two or three small cannon were planted on
salient platforms towards the river. There was a large magazine near at
hand, and a part of the adjacent ground was laid out as a garden."
(Pioneers of France in the New World, p. 301.)
CHIEF DONNACONA.
On the 14th of September, 1535, under the head "Shipping News, Port of
Quebec," history might jot down some startling items of marine
intelligence; the arrival from sea of three armed vessels - the "Grande
Hermine," the "Petite Hermine," and the "Emerillon." One would imagine
their entrance in port must have awakened as much curiosity among the
startled denizens of Stadacona - the Hurons of 1535 - as did the anchoring
in our harbour, in August, 1861, of Capt. Vine Hall's leviathan, the
"Great Eastern." Were the French fleet the first European keels which
furrowed the Laurentian tide under Cape Diamond? We like to think so. Let
the Basques make good their assumed priority: let them produce their
logbook, not merely for the latitude of Newfoundland or Tadoussac, but
also an undisputed entry therein, for the spot where, a century later,
Samuel de Champlain lived, loved, and died. Had the advent of the St. Malo
vikings been heralded by watchful swift-footed retainers to swarthy king
Donnacona, the ruler of the populous town of Stadacona, and a redoubtable
agouhanna of the Huron nation? 'Tis not unlikely.
An entry occurs in the diary of Jacques Cartier, commander of the flagship
"Grande Hermine," to the effect that Donnacona, escorted by twelve canoes,
had met the foreign craft several miles lower than Quebec, where he had
parleyed with his fellow-countrymen, Taiguragny and Domagaya, kidnapped
the year previous at Gaspe and just brought back by Cartier from France;
that, dismissing ten of his twelve canoes, the agouhanna had invited and
received the French commander in his canoe of state, harangued him, and
readily accepted from him a collation of bread and wine, which the captain
of the "Grande Hermine" (thoughtful host) had brought with him.
The meeting over, Donnacona steered for home; and Jacques Cartier ordered
his boats to be manned and ascended the river to seek for a safe anchorage
for his ships. He soon found what he sought, entered then the river Saint
Charles, by him called the St. Croix, landed, crossed the meadows, climbed
the rocks, and threaded the forest. On his return, when he and his party
were rowing for the ships, they had to stand another harangue from the
bank, from an old chief, surrounded by men, boys and some merry squaws, to
whom they gave as presents glass beads, &c., when they regained their
vessels.
What took place at the interview between the French commander and the
Huron potentate? What were the thoughts, hopes, fears of the grim
chieftain on that fateful September day which brought in across the
Atlantic the first wave of foreign invasion - the outer barbarian to his
forest abode?
One would fain depict king Donnacona roaming, solitary and sad; mayhap, on
the ethereal heights of Cape Diamond, watching, with feelings not
unmingled with alarm, the onward course of the French ships - to him
phantoms of ill-omen careering over the dreary waters - until their white
shrouds gradually disappeared under the shadow of the waving pines and
far-spreading oaks which then clad the green banks of the lurking,
tortuous St Charles.
Chief Donnacona, beware! O beware!
CHAPTER III.
THE "ANCIENT CAPITAL."
QUEBEC - ITS HIGHWAYS AND BY-WAYS, EDIFICES, MONUMENTS, CITIZENS,
LEGENDS, CHRONICLES, AND ANTIQUITIES.
"I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city." - (Shakespeare.)
What a field here for investigation? Has not each thoroughfare its
distinctive feature - its saintly, heathenish, courtly, national, heroic,
perhaps burlesque, name? Its peculiar origin? traceable sometimes to a
dim - a forgotten past; sometimes to the utilitarian present time. What
curious vistas are unfolded in the birth of its edifices - public and
private - alive with the memories of their clerical, bellicose,
agricultural or mercantile founders? How much mysterious glamour does not
relentless time shed over them in its unceasing march? How many
vicissitudes do they undergo before giving way to modern progress, the
exigencies of commerce, the wants or whims of new masters? The edifices,
did we say? Their origin, their progress, their decay, nay, their
demolition by the modern iconoclast - have they no teachings? How many
phases in the art of the builder and engineer, from the high-peaked Norman
cottage to the ponderous, drowsy Mansard roof - from Champlain's picket
fort to the modern citadel of Quebec - from our primitive legislative
meeting-house to our stately Parliament Buildings on the Grande Allee?
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