{3} The Fall of Montmorenci particularly attracted my notice, as it is perhaps the most pleasing natural cascade in the world; and though its height and width are not to be compared in point of awful grandeur with the stupendous cataract of Niagara, it is sufficiently wonderful to shew the power of the great Architect of the Universe; and its effects are more pleasing than the latter; for while it produces wonder and pleasure in the highest degree, it does not strike the beholder with such tremendous ideas. As our ship was bound to Montreal, as well as Quebec, and I was under the captain’s care and direction, he did not allow me to go on shore at the latter place; but in a few days, to my great joy, we arrived safe at Montreal, the place of our last destination. Montreal, formerly called Ville Marie, has nothing remarkable in it at present; it was formerly famous for a great fair, which lasted near three months, and was resorted to by the Indians, who came from the distance of many hundreds of miles, to barter their peltry for English goods. It will give pleasure to the reader to be informed, that we received here the agreeable intelligence that Mr. Jordan was found in the woods, two days after our departure from Newfoundland, though with the loss of his feet, occasioned by the severity of the weather: he went afterwards in a vessel to Trois Riviéres, where he settled in an iron foundry. Trois Riviéres,[17] is so called from the junction of three currents which empty themselves into the River St. Laurence. About a league from the town there is an iron foundry, which was erected by private {4} persons in the year 1737, and afterwards ceded to the King. At first cannon and mortars were cast there, but it is now principally used in the manufacture of stoves and kettles. The ore is taken at a small distance from the works. A river runs down from the foundry into the River St. Laurence, which enables the proprietors to send their manufactures round the country in boats upon very moderate terms. This town, which is half way between Quebec and Montreal, had formerly a very considerable trade in peltry, and was the second mart in Canada; but in process of time the inhabitants of Montreal contrived to draw almost all the fur-trade to themselves; and though the residents in Trois Riviéres live by their commerce with the savages, and the manufacturing of birch canoes, yet the town has lost that rank and consequence which it formerly maintained; nevertheless, the advantage of the iron foundry makes them some amends, and they live, upon the whole, as happy as any people in Canada. The inhabitants of Trois Riviéres were formerly very much incommoded with fleas, which swarmed in great quantities, and which, Baron de Lahontan humorously observes, occasioned an inconvenient quickness in conversation.