"Beneath us, among the capricious meanders of the River St. Charles, the Cahir-Coubat of Jacques Cartier, is the very place where he first planted the cross and held his first conference with the _Seigneur Donnacona_. Here, very near to us, beneath a venerable elm tree, which, with much regret, we saw cut down, tradition states that Champlain first raised his tent. From the very spot on which we now stand, Count de Frontenac returned to Admiral Phipps that proud answer, as he said, _from the mouth of his cannon_, which will always remain recorded by history. Under these ramparts are spread the plains on which fell Wolfe and where, in the following year, the Chevalier de Lévis and General Murray fought that other battle, in memory of which the citizens of Quebec are erecting (in 1854) a monument. Before us, on the heights of Beauport, the souvenir of battles not less heroic, recall to our remembrance the names of Longueuil, St. Hélène, and Juchereau Duchesnay. Below us, at the foot of that tower on which floats the British flag, Montgomery and his soldiers all fell, swept by the grape-shot of a single gun pointed by a Canadian artilleryman. "On the other hand, under that projecting rock, now crowned with the guns of old England, the intrepid Dambourgès, sword in hand, drove Arnold and his men from the houses in which they had established themselves. History is then everywhere around us. She rises as well from these ramparts, replete with daring deeds, as from those illustrious plains equally celebrated for feats of arms, and she again exclaims: 'Here I am!'" CHAPTER II. _QUEBEC FOUNDED, JULY 3,_ 1608. Fancy borne on the outspread wings of memory occasionally loves to soar o'er the dull, prosaic present, far away into the haunted, dream-land of a hazy but hopeful past. Let us recall one year, in the revolving cycle of time--one day above all days--for dwellers in Champlain's eyry keep pre-eminently sacred that auspicious 3rd of July, 1608, when his trusty little band, in all twenty- eight, founded the city destined soon to be the great Louis's proud forta- lice,--the Queen city of the French western world. On that memorable July day, would you, kind reader, like to ascend the lofty slope of Cape Diamond, at the hour when the orb of light is shedding his fierce, meridian rays on the verdant shores and glancing waters below, and watch with bated breath the gradually increasing gap in the primeval forest, which busy French axes are cleaving in order to locate the residence--"L'ABITATION"--of a loved commander, Samuel de Champlain?