And now the village of Ste. Anne's is reached, a sacred place to the departing voyageurs, and here at the old warehouse the canoes are moored. Among the group of pretty Canadian houses stands out the Gothic church with its spire so dear an object to the canoe men. The superstitious voyageurs relate that old Bréboeuf, who had gone as priest with the early French explorers, had been badly injured on the portage by the fall of earth and stones upon him. The attendance possible for him was small, and he had laid himself down to die on the spot where stands the church. He prayed to Ste. Anne, the sailors' guardian, and on her appearing to him he promised to build a church if he survived. Of course, say the voyageurs, with a merry twinkle of the eye, he recovered and kept his word. At the shrine of "la bonne Ste. Anne" the voyageur made his vow of devotion, asked for protection on his voyage, and left such gift as he could to the patron saint. Coming up and down the river at this point the voyageurs often sang the song:-- "Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré Deux cavaliers très bien montés;" with the refrain to every verse:-- "A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer, A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer." ("Under the shady tree I go to play.") It is said that it was when struck with the movement and rhythm of this French chanson that Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, on his visit to Canada, while on its inland waters, wrote the "Canadian Boat Song," and made celebrated the good Ste. Anne of the voyageurs. Whether in the first lines he succeeded in imitating the original or not, his musical notes are agreeable:-- "Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time." Certainly the refrain has more of the spirit of the boatman's song:-- "Row, brothers, row; the stream runs fast, The rapids are near and the daylight's past." The true colouring of the scene is reflected in "We'll sing at Ste. Anne;" and-- "Ottawa's tide, this trembling moon, Shall see us float over thy surges soon." Ste. Anne really had a high distinction among all the resting-places on the fur trader's route. It was the last point in the departure from Montreal Island. Religion and sentiment for a hundred years had consecrated it, and a short distance above it, on an eminence overlooking the narrows--the real mouth of the Ottawa--was a venerable ruin, now overgrown with ivy and young trees, "Château brillant," a castle speaking of border foray and Indian warfare generations ago.