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
to Quebec, to see on this side and on that, for the space of eight
leagues, the farms and the houses of the company, built by our French,
all along these shores. On the right, the seigniories of Beauport, of
Notre Dames des Anges; and on the left, this beautiful Isle of Orleans.”
The same traveller names among the fruits of the country observed at the
Isles of Richelieu, at the head of Lake St. Peter, “kinds (_des
espèces_) of little apples or haws (_semelles_), and of pears, which
only ripen with the frost.”
Night came on before we had passed the high banks. We had come from
Montreal to Quebec in one night. The return voyage, against the stream,
takes but an hour longer. Jacques Cartier, the first white man who is
known to have ascended this river, thus speaks of his voyage from what
is now Quebec to the foot of Lake St. Peter, or about half-way to
Montreal: “From the said day, the 19th, even to the 28th of the said
month, [September, 1535] we had been navigating up the said river
without losing hour or day, during which time we had seen and found as
much country and lands as level as we could desire, full of the most
beautiful trees in the world,” which he goes on to describe. But we
merely slept and woke again to find that we had passed through all that
country which he was eight days in sailing through. He must have had a
troubled sleep. We were not long enough on the river to realize that it
had length; we got only the impression of its breadth, as if we had
passed over a lake a mile or two in breadth and several miles long,
though we might thus have slept through a European kingdom. Being at the
head of Lake St. Peter, on the above-mentioned 28th of September,
dealing with the natives, Carrier says: “We inquired of them by signs if
this was the route to Hochelaga [Montreal]; and they answered that it
was, and that there were yet three days’ journeys to go there.” He
finally arrived at Hochelaga on the 2d of October.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account