as lightning, to the level river plain, over which we glide by the impetus of our descent fully half-a-mile further. I tried it twice. My companion was severely affected by the shock, and gave in with a bad headache at the first experiment. The same day, several reckless young officers of the garrison would insist upon steering themselves, paying a guinea each for the privilege. One of them suffered for his freak from a broken arm. But with experienced guides no ill-consequences are on record. An appalling tragedy is related of this ice-mountain. An American tourist with his bride was among the visitors to the Falls one day some years back. They were both young and high-spirited, and had immensely enjoyed their marriage trip by way of the St. Lawrence. Standing on the summit of the cone, in raptures with the cataract, the cliffs ice-bedecked, the trees ice-laden, their attention was for an instant diverted from each other. The young man, gazing eastward across the river, talking gaily to his wife, was surprised at receiving no reply, and looking round found himself alone. Shouting frantically, no answering cry could be distinguished,--the roaring of the cascade was loud enough to drown any human voice. Hanging madly over the edge next the Falls, which is quite precipitous, there was nothing to be seen but a boiling whirlpool of angry waters. The poor girl had stepped unconsciously backward,--had slipped down into the boiling surf,--had been instantaneously carried beneath the ice of the river. Another peculiarity of Quebec is its ice-freshets in spring. Near the vast tasteless church of St. John, on the road of that name, a torrent of water from the higher level crosses the street, and thunders down the steep ways descending to the Lower Town. At night it freezes solidly again, and becomes so dangerously slippery, that I have seen ladies piloted across for several hundred feet, by holding on to the courteously extended walking stick of the first gentlemanly stranger to whom they could appeal for help in their utter distress and perplexity. These freshets flood the business streets named after St. Peter and St. Paul on the level of the wharves. To cross them at such times, floating planks are put in requisition, and no little skill is required to escape a wetting up to the knees. The social aspects of the city are as unique as its natural features. The Romish hierarchy exercises an arbitrary, and I must add a beneficial, rule over the mixed maritime and crimping elements which form its lowest stratum. Private charity is universal on the part of the well-to-do citizens. It is an interesting sight to watch the numbers of paupers who are supplied weekly from heaps of loaves of bread piled high on the tradesmen's counters, to which all comers are free to help themselves.