It
Is Said That The Waters Of The Charles And The St. Lawrence Do Not
Mix Till They Meet Each Other At The Foot Of This Island.
I do not know that I am particularly happy at describing a
waterfall, and what little capacity I may have in this way I would
wish to keep for Niagara.
One thing I can say very positively
about Montmorency, and one piece of advice I can give to those who
visit the falls. The place from which to see them is not the
horrible little wooden temple which has been built immediately over
them on that side which lies nearest to Quebec. The stranger is
put down at a gate through which a path leads to this temple, and
at which a woman demands from him twenty-five cents for the
privilege of entrance. Let him by all means pay the twenty-five
cents. Why should he attempt to see the falls for nothing, seeing
that this woman has a vested interest in the showing of them? I
declare that if I thought that I should hinder this woman from her
perquisites by what I write, I would leave it unwritten, and let my
readers pursue their course to the temple - to their manifest
injury. But they will pay the twenty-five cents. Then let them
cross over the bridge, eschewing the temple, and wander round on
the open field till they get the view of the falls, and the view of
Quebec also, from the other side. It is worth the twenty-five
cents and the hire of the carriage also. Immediately over the
falls there was a suspension bridge, of which the supporting, or
rather non-supporting, pillars are still to be seen. But the
bridge fell down, one day, into the river; and - alas! alas! - with
the bridge fell down an old woman, and a boy, and a cart - a cart
and horse - and all found a watery grave together in the spray. No
attempt has been made since that to renew the suspension bridge;
but the present wooden bridge has been built higher up in lieu of
it.
Strangers naturally visit Quebec in summer or autumn, seeing that a
Canada winter is a season with which a man cannot trifle; but I
imagine that the mid-winter is the best time for seeing the Falls
of Montmorency. The water in its fall is dashed into spray, and
that spray becomes frozen, till a cone of ice is formed immediately
under the cataract, which gradually rises till the temporary
glacier reaches nearly half way to the level of the higher river.
Up this men climb - and ladies also, I am told - and then descend,
with pleasant rapidity, on sledges of wood, sometimes not without
an innocent tumble in the descent. As we were at Quebec in
September, we did not experience the delights of this pastime.
As I was too early for the ice cone under the Montmorency Falls, so
also was I too late to visit the Saguenay River, which runs into
the St. Lawrence some hundred miles below Quebec.
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