To our great satisfaction, we were permitted, after but one day’s detention, to resume our course. With wind and tide in our favour, we soon dropped up to the city. It was a clear and brilliant morning in June when we left Gros Isle, and as we made our way up the narrow channel between the Island of Orleans and the southern bank of the river, nothing could exceed the beauty of the scene, the great basin, into which the city juts, being visible in the distance, directly ahead of us, whilst the precipitous bank on either side, particularly that on our left, was covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, in the shade of which we could, every here and there, discover foaming torrents, dashing headlong from the country above into the river, like those which, after heavy rains, rush with such fury down the western bank of Loch Ness. On opening one of the points of the Isle Orleans, the cataract of Montmorency burst suddenly upon our view, looking in the distance like a long streak of snow amid the rich green foliage which imbedded it. Considerably higher up, Point Levy still projected between us and the city, but long before we turned it, we could see over it the British flag floating in the distance from the lofty battlements of Cape Diamond. On turning the point, the change of scene was as sudden and complete as any ever effected by the scenic contrivances of the stage. The city was at once disclosed to view, skirting the fort and crowning the summit of the bold rocky promontory on which it stands, its tinned roofs and steeples gleaming in the sunlight, as if they were cased in silver. Very few vessels were at the wharves, but abreast of the city hundreds were anchored in the middle of the stream, some getting rid of their ballast, and others surrounded by islands of timber, with which they were being loaded. The clearness of the air, the brightness of the sky, the merry tumble of the water, slightly ruffled by a fresh easterly breeze, the singular position and quaint appearance of the town, with its massive battlements, its glistening turrets, and its break-neck looking streets, zigzagging up the precipice, with the rich greenery of the Heights of Abraham beyond, and that of Point Levy right opposite, and with hundreds of vessels lying quietly at anchor on the broad expanse of the river, whilst the echoes reverberated to the merry choruses of their busy crews,—all conspired to form a picture calculated to make an impression upon the imagination too deep to be ever effaced. The anchor had scarcely dropped, terminating our long and weary voyage, when we were boarded by a Custom-House officer, and by an officer of the Board of Health. After another inspection, we were permitted to land; and it was not without many anxious reflections upon the novelty of my situation, that I found myself retiring that night to rest within a stone’s throw of the monument raised to the joint memories of Wolf and Montcalm.