A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.Thoreau, Henry David
History
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.
Thoreau, Henry David
Brown, John, 1800-1859; Québec (Province) -- Description and travel; Slavery -- United States
The Falls of the Chaudière are three miles from its
mouth on the south side of the St. Lawrence. Though they were the
largest which I saw in Canada, I was not proportionately interested by
them, probably from satiety. I did not see any _peculiar_ propriety in
the name _Chaudière_, or cauldron. I saw here the most brilliant rainbow
that I ever imagined. It was just across the stream below the precipice,
formed on the mist which this tremendous fall produced; and I stood on a
level with the key-stone of its arch. It was not a few faint prismatic
colors merely, but a full semicircle, only four or five rods in
diameter, though as wide as usual, so intently bright as to pain the
eye, and apparently as substantial as an arch of stone. It changed its
position and colors as we moved, and was the brighter because the sun
shone so clearly and the mist was so thick. Evidently a picture painted
on mist for the men and animals that came to the falls to look at; but
for what special purpose beyond this, I know not. At the farthest point
in this ride, and when most inland, unexpectedly at a turn in the road
we descried the frowning citadel of Quebec in the horizon, like the beak
of a bird of prey. We returned by the river-road under the bank, which
is very high, abrupt, and rocky. When we were opposite to Quebec, I was
surprised to see that in the Lower Town, under the shadow of the rock,
the lamps were lit, twinkling not unlike crystals in a cavern, while the
citadel high above, and we, too, on the south shore, were in broad
daylight. As we were too late for the ferry-boat that night, we put up
at a _maison de pension_ at Point Levi. The usual two-story stove was
here placed against an opening in the partition shaped like a fireplace,
and so warmed several rooms. We could not understand their French here
very well, but the _potage_ was just like what we had had before. There
were many small chambers with doorways but no doors. The walls of our
chamber, all around and overhead, were neatly ceiled, and the timbers
cased with wood unpainted. The pillows were checkered and tasselled, and
the usual long-pointed red woollen or worsted night-cap was placed on
each. I pulled mine out to see how it was made. It was in the form of a
double cone, one end tucked into the other; just such, it appeared, as I
saw men wearing all day in the streets. Probably I should have put it on
if the cold had been then, as it is sometimes there, thirty or forty
degrees below zero.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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