Volume IV Part 7 (1/2)

”Eight days of varied horror pa.s.sed; what boots it now to tell How the pale tenants of the fort heroically fell?

Hunger and thirst and sleeplessness, Death's ghastly aids, at length, Marred and defaced their comely forms, and quelled their giant strength.

The end draws nigh--they yearn to die--one glorious rally more, For the dear sake of Ville Marie and all will soon be o'er; Sure of the martyr's golden Crown, they shrink not from the Cross, Life yielded for the land they loved, they scorn to reckon loss.”

Some distance above, at the Chateau Montebello, lived in the early nineteenth century Louis Joseph Papineau, the ”French-Canadian O'Connell,” the seigneur of the district, who was the local leader in resistance to English aggressions, of whom the French are very proud, and his portrait hangs in the Parliament House at Ottawa. He was defeated, banished and then pardoned, and lived here to a ripe old age to see many of the reforms and privileges for which he had contended fully realized under subsequent administrations. The Riviere aux Lievres rushes into the Ottawa down a turbulent cascade, through which logs dash until caught in the booms at the sawmills below, where are vast lumber piles. This river is two hundred and eighty miles long, and just above its mouth has a fall at Buckingham of seventy feet, giving an enormous water-power. The whole region hereabout is devoted to lumbering. The French _habitan_ from Lower Quebec comes up into this wilderness of woods with scarcely any capital but his axe, in the use of which he is expert. These Canadians do not like leaving their homes, but are compelled by sheer necessity. When the old Quebec farm has been subdivided among the children, under the French system, until the long, ribbon-like strips of land become so narrow between the fences that there is no opportunity for further sub-division, the young men must seek a livelihood elsewhere. The old man gives them a blessing, with a good axe and two or three dollars, and they start for the lumber camps. They catch abundant fish, can live on almost nothing, and need only buy their flour and salt, with some pork for a luxury. These lumbermen often wear picturesque costumes like the old voyageurs, and they like flaming red scarfs. They are as polite as the most courtly French gentleman, and pa.s.s their evenings in dancing, with music and singing the ancient songs of their forefathers, scorning anything modern. Many of them are Metis, or half-breeds, the descendants of French and Indians. These are more heavy featured and not so sprightly as the pure French, but they are equally skillful woodmen, and have inherited many good traits from both races, though they rather regard with pity their full-blooded Indian half-brothers, whose lot is scarcely as favorable. All these people are devout Catholics, and going up into the woods in the late autumn and remaining until after Easter, the priests always visit their camps to attend to their spiritual wants. An impressive scene in these vast forests in the dawn of a cold winter morning is to see the priest standing with outstretched arms at the rude altar, the light of the candles revealing the earnest faces of his flock as they reverentially attend the ma.s.s. These woodmen are firm believers in the supernatural, convinced that the spirits of the dead come back in various shapes. If a single crow is seen they are sure a calamity has occurred; if two crows fly before them it means a wedding. An owl hooting indicates impending danger. They are always hearing strange voices at night, or seeing ominous shapes in the twilight wood shadows. The Metis are good hunters, and great is their joy when a belated bear is found near the camp, or a deer or moose is tracked in the snow. Their lumbering is done near the streams, so the logs may be thrown in and floated down by the spring freshets. They make a vast product of timber, sold throughout the lakes and St. Lawrence region, much going across the Atlantic.

THE DOMINION CAPITAL.

The earliest settler at the portage around the Chaudiere Falls of the Ottawa was Philemon Wright, of Woburn, Ma.s.sachusetts, who came along in 1800, and not getting on successfully, sold out about twenty years later to cancel a debt of $200. Subsequently there was established at the confluence of the three rivers, Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau, by Colonel By, a British military post and Indian trading-station, around which in time a settlement grew which was called Bytown, distant about a hundred miles from the St. Lawrence River. It was incorporated a city in 1854 by the name of Ottawa; and when the Dominion Confederation was formed in 1858 there was so much contention about the claims of rival cities to be the capital--Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Quebec all being urged--that Queen Victoria, to finally settle the matter, selected Ottawa. There is a population of about sixty thousand, but excepting from the n.o.ble location of the magnificent public buildings, the political importance of the city does not attract the visitor so much as the business development. The lumber trade makes the first and greatest impression; landing among boards and sawdust, walking amid timber piles and over wooden sidewalks, with slabs, blocks and planks everywhere in endless profusion, the rus.h.i.+ng waters filled with floating logs and sawdust, busy saws running, planing-machines screeching, the ca.n.a.ls carrying lumber cargoes, the rivers lined with acres of board piles--an idea is got of what the lumber trade of the Ottawa valley is. The timber is almost all white and yellow pine. Alongside the Chaudiere Falls at the western verge of the town are cl.u.s.tered the great sawmills, while capacious slides shoot the logs down, which are to be floated farther along to the St. Lawrence. There are also large flour-mills and other factories getting power from this cataract.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Chaudiere Falls, St. Lawrence_]

The Chaudiere, or the ”Cauldron,” is a remarkable cataract, and the Indians were so terrified by it, that to propitiate its evil genius we are told they usually threw in a little tobacco before traversing the portage around it. The rapids begin about six miles above, terminating in this great boiling cauldron with a sheer descent of forty feet, which is as curious as it is grand. Owing to the peculiar formation of the enclosing rocks, all the waters of the broad river are converged into a sort of basin about two hundred feet wide, plunging in with vast commotion and showers of spray. Efforts have been made to sound this strange cauldron, but the lead has not found bottom at three hundred feet depth. The narrowness of the pa.s.sage between the enclosing rocky walls, just below the falls, has enabled a bridge to be built across, connecting Ottawa with the suburb of Hull.

Here is given an admirable view of the foaming, descending waters, clouds of spray, and at times gorgeous rainbows, flanked by timber piles and sawmills, sending out rus.h.i.+ng streams of water and sawdust into the river below. Near by a chain of eight ma.s.sive locks brings the Rideau Ca.n.a.l down through a fissure in the high bank to the level of the lower Ottawa, its sides being almost perpendicularly cut by the action of water in past ages. The locks are a Government work, of solid masonry, well built, and the fissure divides Ottawa into the Upper and the Lower Town, pretty bridges being thrown across it on the lines of the princ.i.p.al streets. The Rideau Ca.n.a.l follows the Rideau River upwards southwest to the Lake Ontario level, and in the whole distance of one hundred and twenty-six miles to Kingston, overcomes four hundred and forty-six feet by forty-seven locks. Much of the suburb of Hull and a considerable part of Ottawa, with enormous amounts of lumber, were destroyed by a great fire in April, 1900, a high wind fanning the flames that were spread by the inflammable materials.

Upon Barrack Hill, at an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet, surrounded by ornamental grounds, and having the Ottawa River flowing at the western base, stand the Government buildings. They are magnificent structures, costing nearly $4,000,000, the Prince of Wales having laid the corner-stone on his visit in 1860. They are built of cream-colored sandstone, with red sandstone and Ohio stone tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, the architecture being Italian Gothic, and they stand upon three sides of a gra.s.s-covered quadrangle, and occupy an area of four acres. They include the Parliament House, the chief building, and all the Dominion Government offices. The former is four hundred and seventy-two feet long, the other buildings on the east and west sides of the quadrangle being somewhat smaller. All are impressive, their great elevation enabling their towers and spires to be seen for many miles. The legislative chambers are richly furnished, and Queen Victoria's portrait is on the walls of one House, and those of King George III.

and Queen Charlotte upon the other. The Parliamentary Library, a handsome polygonal structure of sixteen angles, adjoins. The Governor-General resides in Rideau Hall, across the Rideau River.

From a little pavilion out upon the western edge of Barrack Hill, high above the Ottawa, there is a long view over the western and northern country, whence that river comes. To the left is the rolling land of Ontario province, and to the right the distant hills and looming blue mountains of Quebec, the river dividing them. Behind the pavilion is the stately Parliament House, its n.o.ble Victoria Tower, seen from afar, rising two hundred and twenty feet.

MONTREAL TO QUEBEC.

The broad St. Lawrence River flows one hundred and eighty miles from Montreal to Quebec. A succession of parishes is pa.s.sed, each with its lofty church and presbytere, reproducing the picturesque buildings of old Normandy and Brittany, with narrow windows and steep roofs, all covered with s.h.i.+ning white tin which the dry air preserves. Little villages cl.u.s.ter around the churches, with long stretches of arable lands between. Among a ma.s.s of wooded islands on the northern bank, the turbid waters of the lower Ottawa outlet flow in, the edge of the clearer blue of the St. Lawrence being seen for some distance below.

The delta makes green alluvial islands and shoals. Thus we sail down the great river, past sh.o.r.es that were long ago very well settled.

”Past little villages we go, With quaint old gable ends that glow Bright in the sunset's fire; And, gliding through the shadows still, Oft notice, with a lover's thrill, The peeping of a spire.”

In the eighteenth century, Kalm, a Swedish tourist in America, said it could be really called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, ”for the farmhouses are never more than five arpents apart, and sometimes but three asunder, a few places excepted;” and two centuries ago a traveller on the river wrote that the houses ”were never more than a gunshot apart.” All the people are French, retaining the language and old customs, simple-minded and primitive, the same as under the ancient French regime, and excepting that one village, Varennes, has put two towers upon its stately church, all of them are exactly alike. It is recorded that in Champlain's time some Huguenot sailors came up the river piously singing psalm tunes. This did not please the officials, and soon a boat with soldiers put off from one of these villages, and the officer in charge told them that ”Monseigneur, the Viceroy, did not wish that they should sing psalms on the great river.” The first steamer that came along the St.

Lawrence created unlimited dread, horrifying the villagers. Solemnly crossing himself, an old voyageur, who probably thought his trade on the waters endangered, exclaimed, in his astonishment, ”But can you believe that the good G.o.d will permit all that?”

The Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, comes in at Sorel, the chief affluent on the southern bank, its ca.n.a.l system making a navigable connection with the Hudson River. Cardinal Richelieu took great interest in early Canadian colonization, and Fort Richelieu was built at the mouth of this river, being afterwards enlarged to prevent Iroquois forays, by Captain Sorel, whose name is preserved in the town. Below, there is an archipelago of low alluvial islands, and the St. Lawrence broadens out into Lake St. Peter, nine or ten miles wide, and generally shallow, this being the head of the tidal influence. On its southern side flows in the St. Francis River, the outlet of Lake Memphremagog and of many streams and lakes in the vast wilderness along the boundary north of Vermont and east of Lake Champlain. At its mouth is the little village of St. Francois du Lac. As the sh.o.r.es contract below Lake St. Peter, the town of Three Rivers is pa.s.sed midway between Montreal and Quebec. Here the fine river St. Maurice, another great lumber-producing stream, flows in upon the northern bank, two little islands dividing its mouth into a delta of three channels, thus naming the town. The St. Maurice is full of rapids and cataracts, the chief being Shawanagan Fall, about twenty miles inland, noted for its grandeur and remarkable character. The river, suddenly bending and divided into two streams by a pile of rocks, falls nearly one hundred and fifty feet and dashes against an opposing wall, where the reunited stream forces its way through a narrow pa.s.sage scarcely a hundred feet wide. The two lofty rocks bounding this abyss are called La Grande Mere and Le Bon Homme. The headwaters of St. Maurice interlock with some of those of the gloomy Saguenay north of Quebec.

An enormous output of lumber comes down to Three Rivers, and the district also produces much bog iron ore. Here are extensive sawmills, iron-works, and one of the largest paper-pulp establishments in America, the unrivalled water-power being thus utilized. Below the St.

Maurice, as the outcropping foothills from the Laurentian Mountains approach the river, the scenery becomes more picturesque. The Richelieu rapids are here, requiring careful navigation among the rocks, and Jacques Cartier River comes in from the north. In front of St. Augustin village, years ago, the steamer ”Montreal” was burnt with a loss of two hundred lives, and on the outskirts is an ancient ruined church, which is said to have fallen in decay because the devil a.s.sisted at its building. This was in 1720, and the tradition is that His Satanic Majesty appeared in the form of a powerful black stallion, who hauled the blocks of stone, until his driver, halting at a watering-trough, where there was also a small receptacle of holy water for the faithful, unbridled the horse, who became suddenly restive and vanished in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Many pious pilgrimages are made to the present fine church of the village, having a statue of the guardian angel standing out in front, commemorating the Vatican Council of 1870. As Quebec is approached, the ”coves” are seen on the northern sh.o.r.e, arranged with booms for the timber s.h.i.+ps, for easier transfer of lumber from the rafts floated down the river, and the steep bluffs behind run off into Cape Diamond, projecting far across the stream. Old Sillery Church stands up with its tall spire atop of the bold bluff, with a monastery behind it. Here Noel Brulart de Sillery, Knight of Malta, in 1637, established one of the early Jesuit missions. Point Levis stretches from the southern bank to narrow the river channel. The low gray walls of the citadel surmount the highest point of the extremity of Cape Diamond, and rounding it, we are at Quebec.

ORIGIN OF QUEBEC.

Whence comes the name of Quebec? ”Quel bec! Quel bec!”--(What a beak!)--shouted Jacques Cartier's astonished sailors, when, sailing up the St. Lawrence, they first beheld the startling promontory of Cape Diamond, thrust in towering majesty almost across the river. Thus, says one tradition, by a natural elision, was named Quebec, when the Europeans first saw the rock in 1535. Another derivation comes from Candebec on the Seine, which it much resembles. The Indian word ”Kebic,” meaning ”the fearful rocky cliff,” may have been its origin.

The Indian village of Stadacona was here when Cartier found it, a cl.u.s.ter of wigwams fringing the sh.o.r.e in front of the bold cliff, its people bearing allegiance to the Montaignais chief, Donnacona. Here the ancient chronicle records that Cartier saw a ”mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the raging current,”

and he planted the cross and lilies of France and took possession for his king. Returning to Europe, he took back as prisoners the chief, Donnacona, and several of his warriors, their arrival making a great sensation. They were feted and prayed for, and becoming converted, were baptised with pomp in the presence of a vast a.s.semblage in the magnificent Cathedral of Rouen. But the round of pleasure and feasting, with the excess of excitement, overcame these children of the forest, and they all died within a year. Colonization on the St.

Lawrence, after Cartier's voyages, languished for seventy years, various ill-starred expeditions failing, and it was not until 1608 that the city of Quebec was really founded by Samuel de Champlain, who was sent out by a company of a.s.sociated n.o.blemen of France to establish a fur trade with the Indians and open a new field for the Church, the Roman Catholic religion being then in the full tide of enthusiasm which in the seventeenth century made what was known as the ”counter reformation.” Champlain built a fort and established the province of New France, but his colony was of slow growth. There subsequently came out the military and commercial adventurers and religious enthusiasts, who were the first settlers of the new empire.

The Recollet Fathers came in 1615, and the Jesuit missionary priests in 1625 and subsequently. The famous Canadian bishop, Laval de Montmorency, Father Hennepin, and the Sieur de la Salle, all came out in the same s.h.i.+p at a later period. Thus was founded the great French Catholic power in North America.

The Church thoroughly ruled the infant colony of Quebec. In the fort, black-garbed Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at Champlain's table. Parkman says, ”There was little conversation, but in its place, histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic refectory; prayers, ma.s.ses and confessions followed each other with an edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night; G.o.dless soldiers caught the infection, and whipped themselves in penance for their sins; debauched artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition; Quebec was become a mission.” Champlain died at Christmas, 1635, after a long illness, at the age of sixty-eight, the ”Father of Canada,” and Quebec was without a Governor for a half-year. Finally, the next summer, the Father Superior, Le Jeune, who had been directing affairs, espied a s.h.i.+p, and going down to the landing, was met by the new Governor, de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, with a long train of officers and gentlemen. We are told that ”as they all climbed the rock together, Montmagny saw a crucifix planted by the path. He instantly fell on his knees before it; and n.o.bles, soldiers, sailors and priests imitated his example. The Jesuits sang Te Deum at the church, and the cannon roared from the adjacent fort. Here the new Governor was scarcely installed, when a Jesuit came in to ask if he would be G.o.dfather to an Indian about to be baptized. 'Most gladly,' replied the pious Montmagny. He repaired on the instant to the convert's hut, with a company of gaily-apparelled gentlemen; and while the inmates stared in amazement at the scarlet and embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. Three days after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried, on which, leaving the lines of the new fortification he was tracing, he took in hand a torch, De Lisle, his lieutenant, took another, Repentigny and St. Jean, gentlemen of his suite, with a band of soldiers, followed, two priests bore the corpse, and thus all moved together in procession to the place of burial. The Jesuits were comforted. Champlain himself had not displayed a zeal so edifying.” The spiritual power thus so zealously exerted thoroughly controlled Quebec, and its masterful force always continued.

THE FRENCH-CANADIAN MISSIONARIES.

Boundless was the power exerted when the religious envoys of this wonderful colony spread over the interior of America. When the heroic bishop Laval de Montmorency stood on the altar-steps of his Basilica at Quebec, he could wave his crozier over half a continent, from the island of St. Pierre Miquelon to the source of the Mississippi, and from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The Jesuits' College at Quebec was started in a small way as early as 1637, and from it, year after year, issued forth the dauntless missionaries, carrying the gospel out among the Indians for over three thousand miles into the interior, preaching the faith beyond the Mississippi, and down its valley, throughout Louisiana, many suffering death and martyrdom in its most cruel forms. Nowhere in the church annals exists a grander chapter than the record of these missionaries. Unarmed and alone, they travelled the unexplored continent, bravely meeting every horrible torture and lingering death inflicted by the vindictive savages, whom they went out to bless. The world was amazed at their sufferings and achievements. Even Puritan New England, we are told, received their envoy with honors, the apostle Eliot entertaining him at Roxbury parsonage, while Boston, Salem and Plymouth became his gracious hosts.