First view of Quebec--Passage of the St. Lawrence--Novel and rather alarming situation--Russell’s Hotel--The Falls of Montmorenci, and the “Cone”--Aspect of the City--The Point--“Tarboggining”--Description of the “Cone”--Audacity of one of my companions--A Canadian dinner--Call on the Governor--Visit the Citadel--Its position--Capabilities for defence--View from parapet--The armoury--Old muskets--Red-tape thoughtfulness--French and English occupation of Quebec--Strength of Quebec. It was early in the morning when the train from Montreal arrived at Point Levi on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, a little above Quebec. The impression produced on us by the heights of Abraham, by the frowning citadel, by the picturesque old city glistening in the sun’s rays, and by the great river battling its way through the fields of ice and the countless miniature bergs, which it hustled upwards with full-tide power, can never be effaced. It required some faith to enable one to believe the passage could be made by mortal boat of that vast flood from which the crash of ice sounded endlessly, as floes and bergs floating full speed were dashed against each other--flying fast as clouds in a wintry sky up the river, the banks of which resembled the sheer sides of an Alpine crevasse. The force of the stream is so great as to rend through and rupture the coat of ice which is thickened daily, and the masses thus broken, tossed into all sorts of singular shapes, jagged and quaint, are borne up and down by the flood till they are melted by the increasing warmth of spring. An ice bridge is occasionally formed by the concentration of the ice in such masses as to resist the action of the water, and then sleigh horses cross by a path which is marked out by poles or twigs stuck in the snow, but it more usually happens that the river opposite Quebec remains unfrozen, and offers the singular spectacle of the ice rushing up and down every day as the tide rises and falls, to the great interest and excitement of strangers who have to cross from one side to the other. At first the attempt seems impracticable. The deep blue of the St. Lawrence can be only seen here and there through the bergs and floes, like the veins beneath a snowy skin, but those glints are for ever varying as the ice passes on. The clear spaces are no sooner caught by the eye than they are filled up again, and every instant there are fresh rifts made in the shifting surface, which is at once as solid as a glacier and as yielding as water. In this race the bergs are carried with astonishing force and rapidity, and a grating noise; and a grinding, crashing sound continually rises from the water.