But to proceed with my story.

We met with many charrettes bringing wood and stone to the city. The most ordinary looking horses travelled faster than ours, or perhaps they were ordinary looking because, as I am told, the Canadians do not use the curry-comb. Moreover, it is said that on the approach of winter their horses acquire an increased quantity of hair to protect them from the cold. If this is true, some of our horses would make you think winter was approaching even in mid summer. We soon began to see women and girls at work in the fields, digging potatoes alone, or bundling up the grain which the men cut. They appeared in rude health with a great deal of color in their cheeks, and if their occupation had made them coarse, it impressed me as better in its effects than making shirts at four-pence apiece, or doing nothing at all, unless it be chewing slate-pencils, with still smaller results. They were much more agreeable objects with their great broad-brimmed hats and flowing dresses, than the men and boys. We afterwards saw them doing various other kinds of work; indeed I thought that we saw more women at work out of doors than men. On our return we observed in this town a girl with Indian boots nearly two feet high taking the harness off a dog. The purity and transparency of the atmosphere were wonderful. When we had been walking an hour we were surprised on turning round to see how near the city with its glittering tin roofs still looked. A village ten miles off did not appear to be more than three or four. I was convinced that you could see objects distinctly there much farther than here. It is true, the villages are of a dazzling white, but the dazzle is to be referred perhaps to the transparency of the atmosphere as much as to the white-wash.

We were now fairly in the village of Beauport, though there was still but one road. The houses stood close upon this, without any front-yards, and at any angle with it, as if they had dropped down, being set with more reference to the road which the sun travels. It being about sundown and the falls not far off, we began to look round for a lodging, for we preferred to put up at a private house, that we might see more of the inhabitants. We inquired first at the most promising looking houses, if indeed any were promising. When we knocked they shouted some French word for Come in, perhaps Entrez, and we asked for a lodging in English; but we found, unexpectedly, that they spoke French only. Then we went along and tried another house, being generally saluted by a rush of two or three little curs which readily distinguished a foreigner, and which we were prepared now to hear bark in French. Our first question would be, Parlez vous Anglais? but the invariable answer was, Non Monsieur; and we soon found that the inhabitants were exclusively French Canadian, and nobody spoke English at all any more than in France; that in fact we were in a foreign country, where the inhabitants uttered not one familiar sound to us. Then we tried by turns to talk French with them, in which we succeeded sometimes pretty well, but for the most part pretty ill. Pouvezvous nous donner un lit cette nuit? we would ask, and then they would answer with French volubility, so that we could catch only a word here and there. We could understand the women and children generally better than the men, and they us; and thus after a while we would learn that they had no more beds than they used.