But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu is not limited to Indian wars, or the conflict between Indian and French. In later years it was to become the road of war between white and white, between New England and New France, and again between the revolted colonists of New England and the loyal colonists of Canada. On the very spot where Champlain and his Algonquins had defeated the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years later another conflict took place, curiously similar in some respects, though different enough in others. Again one side fought behind a barricade, while the other gallantly rushed to the assault, and again the defeat was overwhelming; but there the resemblance ends. Behind the impregnable breastwork at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with his three or four thousand French; without stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand British regulars and Colonial militia. Abercrombie’s one and only idea was to carry the position by assault, and throughout the long day he hurled regiment after regiment up the deadly slope, only to see them mown down by hundreds and thousands before the breastwork. Champlain’s victory was one of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm’s was one of skill over stupidity. Seventeen years after the battle of Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton successfully defended England’s northern colony consisted of French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned into channels of peaceful commerce. V THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell The seething horrors of its watery hell! Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep, Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep The tortured floods, drifting from side to side In furious vortices. KIRBY.