I heard something in the night about the boat being at William Henry, Three Rivers, and in the Richelieu Rapids, but I still where I had been when I lost sight of Pointe aux Trembles. To hear a man who has been waked up at midnight in the cabin of a steamboat, inquiring,—"Waiter, where are we now?"—is as if at any moment of the earthes revolution round the sun, or of the system round its centre, one were to raise himself up and inquire of one of the deck hands,—Where are we now?

I went on deck at daybreak, when we were thirty or forty miles above Quebec. The banks were now higher and more interesting. There was an "uninterupted succession of white-washed cottages" on each side of the river. This is what every traveller tells. But it is not to be taken as an evidence of the populousness of the country in general, hardly even of the river banks. They have presented a similar appearance for a hundred years. The Swedish traveller and naturalist Kalm, who descended this river in 1749, says, "It could really be called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, which is a distance of more than one hundred and eighty miles; for the farm-houses are never above five arpens, and sometimes but three asunder, a few places excepted." Even in 1684 Hontan said that the houses were not more than a gunshot apart at most. Ere long we passed Cap Rouge, eight miles above Quebec, the mouth of the Chaudiagere on the opposite or south side, New Liverpool Cove with its lumber rafts and some shipping; then Sillery and Wolfees Cove and the Heights of Abraham on the north, with now a view of Cape Diamond and the citadel in front. The approach to Quebec was very imposing. It was about six oeclock in the morning when we arrived. There is but a single street under the cliff on the south side of the cape, which was made by blasting the rock and filling up the river. Three story houses did not rise more than one fifth or one sixth the way up the nearly perpendicular rock, whose summit is three hundred and forty-five feet above the water. We saw, as we glided past, the sign on the side of the precipice, part way up, pointing to the spot where Montgomery was killed in 1775. Formerly it was the custom for those who went to Quebec for the first time, to be ducked, or else pay a fine. Not even the Governor General escaped. But we were too many to be ducked, even if the custom had not been abolished.

Here we were, in the harbor of Quebec, still three hundred and sixty miles from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in a basin two miles across, where the greatest depth is twenty-eight fathoms, and though the water is fresh, the tide rises seventeen to twenty-four feet, a harbor "large and deep enough," says a British traveller, "to hold the English navy." I may as well state that in 1844 the county of Quebec contained about 45000 inhabitants (the city and suburbs having about 43000). About 28000 being Canadians of French origin; about 8000 being Canadians of British origin; over 7000 being natives of Ireland; 1500 being natives of England; the rest Scotch and others; 36000 belong to the Church of Rome. Separating ourselves from the crowd we walked up a narrow street, thence ascended by some wooden steps, called the Break- neck Stairs, into another steep narrow and zigzag street, blasted through the rock, which last led through a low massive stone portal, called Prescott Gate, the principal thoroughfare, into the Upper Town. This passage was defended by cannon, with a guard-house over it, a sentinel at his post, and other soldiers at hand ready to relieve him.