Between Quebec and Montreal, the banks of the Great River were hardly in so advanced a state as those toward the sea; the churches were fewer and more distant, the houses ruder and more scattered. There were many miles, indeed, where no traces of human industry greeted the traveler's eye. The shores of the great lakes, or, rather, expansions of the stream, were dreary swamps and thickets, and the slopes of the distant hills still bore the primeval forest. On the sandy flats of Three Rivers, in a scattered village, dwelt a population more numerous than that of the present day; a small surrounding district was cleared and cultivated, but the main occupation and support of the inhabitants was the fur trade with the Indians, who resorted thither from the unknown north by the waters of the broad streams here uniting with the St. Lawrence. The rich and fertile island of Montreal was already generally cleared, and extensively but thinly peopled. The city, at times called Ville Marie in old maps, ranged somewhat irregularly for more than a mile along the river side, and was even then remarkable for the superiority of its public buildings over those of its colonial neighbors. The Fathers of the Sulpician Order, by virtue of a grant in the year 1663, were proprietors of the whole of this rich district. They had established three courts of justice in the city, and erected a stately church of cut stone at a great expense. The Knights Hospitallers also possessed a very handsome building. A large, solid rampart of heavy beams, with eleven separate redoubts, protected the landward face of Montreal, and two platform batteries commanded the streets from end to end. Here was the great dépôt of the northwestern fur trade, and here, also, the best market for the plentiful crops of the adjoining island, of the prairie, and of the Richelieu district.