Part 44 (2/2)
”Ours is the Greater Rhine The Ger; our Rhine is nearly twenty-five hundred : the Geres; our Rhine defies bridges, except in its narrowest boundaries The great inland seas of Superior, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Erie require a width of miles for their pathway to the ocean The Rhine falls cannot be coara, nor the scattered islands of the old river with the Lake of a Thousand Islands of the new Quebec is as beautiful as Coblentz, and Montreal is in its situation one of the loveliest cities of the world
”The tributaries of the old Rhine are se as the old Rhine itself,--the gloo Ottawa
”Think of its lakes! Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe, contains only 6,330 square an 22,000 square miles
”You will soon have a view of the mountain scenery of the lower St
Lawrence The pine-covered walls along which trail the clouds of the sky are almost continuous to Montreal”
”But why,” asked Charlie Leland, ”is the German Rhine so famous, and ours so little celebrated?”
”The Gerathers around it the history of two thousand years; ours, two hundred years What will our Rhine be two thousand years froland as one of the best products of civilization thus far But there is rising a ne England in the West, a vast empire in the States of the Northwest and in Canada, to which New England is as a province,--an eht, the invention, and the statesoes that way is like a sail of the 'Mayflower'
”In yonder steerage are a thousand eers do not know it; they do not visit theht to them: but there are the men and women whose children will one day sway the empire that ear the crown of the world
”The castles are fading from view on the hills of the old Rhine; towns and cities are leaping into life on the new The procession of cities, like a triuo on, on, on The Canadian Empire will probably one day lock hands with the imperial States of the Northwest; Mexico, perhaps, will join the Confederacy, and Western America will doubtless vie with Eastern Russia in power, in progress, and in the glories of the achievements of the arts and sciences Our Rhine has the future: let the old Rhine have the past”
The Class approached Quebec at night The scene was beautiful: like a city glihts of the lower town, of the upper town, and of the Castle standing on the heights, shone brightly against the hills; and the firing of guns and the striking of bells were echoed from the opposite hills of the calm and majestic river
The Class spent a day at Quebec, chiefly on the Terrace,--one of the most beautiful pro up of the erant trains on the opposite side of the river, where the stea river, going to the great province of Ontario, the lone woods of Muskoka, and the far shores of the Georgian Bay
[Illustration: A NEW ENGLAND IN THE WEST]
[Illustration: NEAR QUEBEC]
”I ejourney on the St Lawrence,” said Charlie Leland
”And collect the old legends, stories, and histories of the Indian tribes, and the early explorers and French settlers,” added Mr Beal
”Perhaps some day we may be able to do so I aret to leave a place so perfectly beautiful as the Terrace of Quebec It is delightful to sit here and see the steaht, happy faces pass, and to recall the fact that the river below is doubtless to be the water-path of the nations that will reatly influence future tio”
ON THE TERRACE,--QUEBEC
Alone, beside these peaceful guns I walk,--the eve is calm and fair; Below, the broad St Lawrence runs, Above, the castle shi+nes in air, And o'er the breathless sea and land Night stretches forth her jewelled hand
Aht faces like a sunlit tide-- Soifts of friendshi+p cast Upon me, as I walk aside, Kind, wordless welcomes understood, The Spirit's touch of brotherhood
Below, the sea; above, the sky, Sht on high, A sphere seraphic seehts there seeolden feet
Below me lies the old French town, With narrow rues and churches quaint, And tiled roofs and gables brown, And signs with names of many a saint