The vast accumulations of waters gathered from the heart of the Laurentides by the tributaries of Lake St. John flow down the rapids below the lake in a stream rivalling those of Niagara. Thus the Saguenay comes into being in the form of lusty twins--the Grand Discharge and the Little Discharge--deep and narrow river channels worn in the rocks. For some miles they run separately through rapids and pools, finally joining at the foot of Alma Island, where begin the Gervais Rapids, four miles long. The Grand Discharge is a beautiful stream of rapids, the rippling and roaring currents flowing through a maze of islands, while the Little Discharge is a condensed stream, so powerful and unruly that it actually destroys the logs in its boisterous cataracts, the government having made a "Slide," down which the timber is run past the dangerous places. After passing Gervais Rapids the Saguenay has a quiet reach of fifteen miles to the Grand Ramous, the most furious cascade of all, and then a few more miles of rapids and falls bring it to Chicoutimi, ending its wild career where it meets the tide above Ha Ha Bay. The first bold Frenchmen who ventured up through the stupendous and forbidding chasm of the Lower Saguenay gave this bay its name, to show their delight at having finally emerged from the gloomy region. At Ha Ha Bay the tide often rises twenty-one feet, and below, the river forces its passage with a broad channel through almost perpendicular cliffs out to the St. Lawrence. Its great depth is noteworthy, showing what a fearful chasm has been split open, there being in many places a mile to a mile and a half depth, while the channel throughout averages eight hundred feet depth. For most of the distance the river is a mile or more wide. The original name given the river by the Montaignais was Chicoutimi, or the "deep water," now given the village below the foot of the rapids. The present name is a corruption of the Indian word Saggishsékuss, meaning "a strait with precipitous banks." The sad sublimity of the impressive chasm culminates at Eternity Bay, where on either hand rise in stately grandeur to sixteen hundred feet elevation above the water Cape Trinity, with its three summits, and Cape Eternity. Ten miles above is Le Tableau, a cliff one thousand feet high, its vast smooth front like an artist's canvas.