This looked very shiftless, especially in a country abounding in Water-power, and reminded me that I was no longer in Yankee land. I found on inquiry that the excuse for this was, that labor was so cheap, and I thought with some pain,—how cheap men are here! I have since learned that the English traveller Warburton, remarked soon after landing at Quebec, that every thing was cheap there but men. That must be the difference between going thither from New and from Old England. I had already observed the dogs harnessed to their little milk-carts, which contain a single large can, lying asleep in the gutters, regardless of the horses, while they rested from their labors, at different stages of the ascent in the Upper Town. I was surprised at the regular and extensive use made of these animals for drawing, not only milk, but groceries, wood, It reminded me that the dog commonly is not put to any use. Cats catch mice; but dogs only worry the cats. Kalm, a hundred years ago, saw sledges here for ladies to ride in drawn by a pair of dogs. He says, "A middle-sized dog is sufficient to draw a single person when the roads are good," and he was told by old people that horses were very scarce in their youth, and almost all the land carriage was then effected by dogs. They made me think of the Esquimaux, who, in fact, are the next people on the north. Charlevoix says that the first horses were introduced in 1665.

We crossed Dorchester Bridge over the St. Charles,—the little river in which Cartier, the discoverer of the St. Lawrence, put his ships, and spent the winter of 1535,—and found ourselves on an excellent Macadamized road, called Le Chemin de Beauport. We had left Concord Wednesday morning, and we endeavored to realize that now, Friday morning, we were taking a walk in Canada, in the Seigniory of Beauport, a foreign country, which a few days before had seemed almost as far off as England and France. Instead of rambling to Flintes Pond or the Sudbury Meadows, we found ourselves, after being a little detained in cars and steamboats,—after spending half a night at Burlington, and half a day at Montreal,—taking a walk down the bank of the St. Lawrence to the Falls of Montmorenci and elsewhere. Well, I thought to myself, here I am in a foreign country, let me have my eyes about me and take it all in. It already looked and felt a good deal colder than it had in New England, as we might have expected it would. I realized fully that I was four degrees nearer the pole, and shuddered at the thought; and I wondered if it were possible that the peaches might not be all gone when I returned. It was an atmosphere that made me think of the fur-trade, which is so interesting a department in Canada, for I had for all head covering a thin palm-leaf hat without lining, that cost twenty-five cents, and over my coat one of those unspeakably cheap, as well as thin, brown linen sacks of the Oak Hall pattern, which every summer appear all over New England, thick as the leaves upon the trees. It was a thoroughly Yankee costume, which some of my fellow travellers wore in the cars to save their coats a dusting. I wore mine at first because it looked better than the coat it covered, and last because two coats were warmer than one, though one was thin and dirty. I never wear my best coat on a journey; though perchance I could show a certificate to prove that I have a more costly one, at least, at home, if that were all that a gentleman required. It is not wise for a traveller to go dressed.