“The Falls of Montmorency are formed by a little river of that name, near its junction with the St. Lawrence, about five miles north of Quebec. They have a peculiar interest in winter, from the immense cone of ice formed at their foot, which was unimpaired when I visited them, in the second week of April. After winding up a short but steep ascent, the road crosses a wooden bridge, beneath which the Montmorency rushes betwixt its dark grey rocks, and precipitates itself in a broken torrent down a wooded glen on the right. It is not until you have wound round the edge of this glen, which is done by quitting the road at the bridge-foot, that you obtain a view of the Falls; nor was their effect lessened by this approach. A partial thaw, succeeded by a frost, had spread a silvery brightness over the waste of snow. Every twig and branch of the surrounding pine-trees, every waving shrub and briar, was encased in crystal, and glittering to the sun-beams like the diamond forest of some northern elf-land. You are now on the edge of a precipice, to which the Fall itself, a perpendicular of 220 feet, seems diminutive; it is not until you descend, and approach its foot, that the whole majesty of the scene becomes apparent. The breadth of the torrent is about fifty feet; the waters, from their prodigious descent, seem snowy-white with foam, and enveloped in a light drapery of gauzy mist. The cone appears about a hundred feet in height, mathematically regular in shape, with its base extending nearly all across the stream; its sides are not so steep, but that ladies have ascended to the top of it; the interior is hollow. I regret to add that a mill is constructing on this river, which will, by diverting the stream, destroy this imperial sport of nature; or, at least, reduce it to the degradation of submitting to be played off at the miller’s discretion, like a Versailles fountain. [Illustration: _Scene from the Summit of the Fall of Montmorency._] [Illustration: _Montmorency Bridge._] “Towards the end of April, the townspeople begin, according to a law of the province, to break up the ice and snow from before their doors; and by the first week in May the streets are tolerably clear. The intermediate state, as may be supposed, is a perfect chaos, through which the stumbling pedestrian, like the arch-fiend of old— ‘Pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps.’