added, "things were very different in Canada.
The poorest habitan was in his heart a gentleman,
and knew how to yield graceful, and not
servile, deference to his superiors. He treated
a lady as if she were a lady, and not as the
Bostonais do—as if she were a silly creature,
pleased to be taken notice of, as a dog might
be. When the habitan paid his rent to his
feudal superior, he dressed himself in his best,
and came neat and clean into the presence of
his landlord or landlady, and discoursed of the
weather and the crops, or the news of the
village; telling who was married and who was dead
since his last visit, and doing his best to make
himself agreeable. Now he comes in his working
clothes, muddy and dirty, and smells of the
farm-yard and the stable, with grimy hands,
sits down without being asked, answers in
monosyllables as if he had a grievance and was
too surly to tell it, and altogether behaves
more like a Bostonais than a Canadian.
However, all are not equally bad. The Church still
exercises its ancient influence over the people;
and the women are the best, the purest, and
the most modest in America." All things
considered, this lady was of opinion that I would
not regret a visit to the villages of the interior,
"where, thank God," she said, "the people are
not quite so Bostonised ('bostonisé') as they
are in Montreal."

Between Montreal and Three Rivers, half
way to Quebec, the St. Lawrence offers nothing
remarkable in the way of scenery, or anything
of interest to the traveller, unless it be the wide
expansion of its bed, which is known by the
name of Lake St. Peter, and through which, at
great cost, a channel has been dredged
sufficiently deep to admit the passage of
ocean-going steamers as large as the Scotia or the
Persia. This work, in its first inception, was
ridiculed and denounced as the impracticable
idea of a romantic enthusiast; but Mr. John
Young persisted in considering it not only
practicable, but, considering the advantages it would
bestow upon the city of Montreal, a very economic
and profitable investment of the public money.
He was neither to be turned from his purpose by
sneers or delays, and lived to see his design carried
out amid the applause and, it may be added,
the gratitude of the whole community. If two
similar designs—long ago advocated by the
same gentleman—the widening and deepening
of the Lachine and the Welland Canals, were
carried out to the extent proposed, first-class
steamers could ply between Liverpool and the
great American lakes with as much regularity
and comfort as they now ply between Liverpool
and New York, and grain from the overflowing
corn-fields of the bounteous West could
reach the British manufacturing districts without
the cost and delay of transhipment: But
everything comes with time to those who
know how to wait, and the Confederated
Dominion of Canada will doubtless complete the
work which the Province of Canada had not the
spirit, or perhaps the means, to undertake.

The steamer that leaves Montreal at four in
the afternoon reaches the town of Three Rivers
before midnight, and lands its passengers at
the great hotel of the place, which overlooks
the long reaches of the swiftly flowing river.
Three Rivers takes its name from the fact that
two branches of the St. Maurice, that rises six
hundred miles away in the pine wildernesses of
the Hudson Bay Company's territory, here
unite with the St. Lawrence. The town, which
next to Quebec is the oldest in Canada,
contains a population of about seven thousand.
It is one of the trading stations of the Hudson
Bay Company, but its chief business is
the receipt and despatch of timber floated
down the long succession of the falls and rapids
of the St. Maurice on its way to Quebec. For
a person with a small income, with no means of
increasing it, and who would be content with
fishing and shooting for amusement, and with
such dull society as a little town affords, Three
Rivers may be recommended as a desirable
place of residence. Fine fat fowls are to be
bought in the market for two shillings a pair,
the shilling representing only tenpence sterling;
beef at fourpence per pound, mutton at two
shillings and sixpence per quarter, and all other
articles of first necessity at rates equally moderate.
The neighbouring country is fertile and
easily cultivated. Game and fish are abundant, and
there are no restrictions upon the gun and the
rod to interfere either with the sport or the
appetite of him who uses them.

The town shortly before my visit had
sustained a serious loss in the death of its most
enterprising inhabitant, Mr. Turcotte, its
representative in the Canadian parliament.
Owing to this gentleman's energy, railroad
communication had been opened up from
the village of St. Gregoire, on the opposite
bank of the St. Lawrence, with the Grand
Trunk Railway at Arthubaska, a distance of
thirty miles to the southward. He had also
planned a railway from Three Rivers northward
to Shawenegan, a distance of about twenty
miles, and had built a monster hotel, on the
American system, overlooking the upper falls.
But the railway was uncommenced, the hotel
was unfinished, and those who wished to feast
their eyes on the glories of Shawenegan had to
hire a vehicle, and take their provisions—edible
and potable—along with them, for there was
nothing to be had on the way but such as small
country cabarets or estaminets could afford. On
these points, however, there was no difficulty.
Our party of five, two ladies and three gentlemen,
were accommodated with a roomy vehicle
—place for one on the box—with two strong,
though gaunt, ungainly steeds, and a careful
driver, who kept up a constant talk to his
horses in French, and knew no word of English
except the profane one that Béranger
mis-spells,

     Quoique leurs chapeaux soient bien laids,
     Goddam! moi, j'aime les Anglais!

Our host of the hotel provided us with all the
creature-comforts that hunger or thirst—or