The morning after the storm was cloudless and tranquil. The wind came gently again from the north-east, slightly rippling the surface of the flowing tide, which carried us with an easy current towards Quebec. Next day we passed the Saugenay, a vast and comparatively unknown stream. We saw it at ebb-tide pouring its mighty waters into the St. Lawrence, and which are supposed in volume to be scarcely inferior, issuing from a region of hills and valleys, destined to become the home of many an outcast from Europe.

As we approached the Isle of Orleans, the St. Lawrence contracted his banks, and the features of the country gradually became more distinct, surprising me with the appearance of a denser population than I had previously conceived any part of the continent of America yet exhibited. It was, however, but in a stripe of villages. The cultivation did not reach to any considerable extent on either side, and the northern mountains were still hoary with winter, save where here and there, to use the words of sabbath Graham, the Glasgow poet, a sweep in the hills opened

“Some distant vista of her bright domain,”

and disclosed the remote and loftier summits which, instead of being capped with snow like those of Europe, were still dark with their original pines, as if none had fallen.