The Huron village of Loretto stands on the left bank of the Charles, about four miles below the lake, (eight from Quebec). The river, immediately on passing the bridge, below the village, rushes down its broken bed of granite, with a descent of about seventy feet, and buries itself in the windings of the deeply-shadowed glen below. A part of the fall is diverted to turn a mill, which seems fearfully suspended above the foaming torrent. The village covers a plot of ground very much in the manner of an English barrack, and altogether the reverse of the straggling Canadian method; it is, in fact, the method of their ancestors. I found the children amusing themselves with little bows and arrows. The houses had generally an air of poverty and slovenliness; that, however, of their principal chief, whom I visited, was neat and comfortable. One of their old men gave me a long account of the manner in which the Jesuits had contrived to trick them out of their seignorial rights, and possession of the grant of land made them by the king of France, which consisted originally of four leagues by one in breadth, from Sillori north. Two leagues of this, which were taken from them by the French government, upon promise of an equivalent, they give up, he said, as lost; but as the property of the Jesuits is at present in the hands of commissioners appointed by our government, they were in hopes of recovering the remainder, which it never could be proved that their ancestor either gave, sold, lent, or in any way alienated. END OF VOL. I. TRANSCRIBER NOTES Spelling maintained as written except where obvious errors or omissions. Multiple spellings of words and names were adopted consistent with Volume II as follows: General Wolf to Wolfe; General Van Ranssellaer or Van Renssellaer to Van Rensselaer; Montmorenci to Montmorency; St. Laurence (river) to St. Lawrence (river); St. John for river and town in New Brunswick; St. John's for Newfoundland and Quebec early settlement on the Richelieu River; Abram to Abraham; and moccassins or mocassins to moccasins. Punctuation maintained except where obvious omissions or printer errors occurred. Engravings have been enhanced and some engravings have been relocated to coincide with the text. [The end of "Canadian Scenery Vol. I of II", by N. P. Willis (Nathaniel Parker).] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Canadian Scenery, Volume I (of 2), by Nathaniel Parker Willis