A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs | Page 4

(From a
Water Colour by the late L.R. O'Brien in the possession of the Hon.
Edward Blake.)
THE GOLF LINKS AT MURRAY BAY 237 (From a Photograph by
W. Notman and Son, Montreal.)
MAPS
THE ST. LAWRENCE FROM QUEBEC TO MURRAY BAY 1
SKETCH MAP OF LAKE ONTARIO AND THE RIVER ST.
LAWRENCE TO ILLUSTRATE THE WAR OF 1812-14 148

[Illustration: THE ST. LAWRENCE FROM QUEBEC TO MURRAY
BAY]

A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDING OF MALBAIE
The situation of Malbaie.--The physical features of Malbaie.--Jacques
Cartier at Malbaie.--Champlain at Malbaie.--The first seigneur of
Malbaie.--A new policy for settling Canada.--The Sieur de Comporté,
seigneur of Malbaie, sentenced to death in France.--His career in
Canada.--His plans for Malbaie.--Hazeur, Seigneur of
Malbaie.--Malbaie becomes a King's Post.--A Jesuit's description of

Malbaie in 1750.--The burning of Malbaie by the British in 1759.
If one is not in too great a hurry it is wise to take the steamer--not the
train--at Quebec and travel by it the eighty miles down the St.
Lawrence to Malbaie, or Murray Bay, as the English call it, somewhat
arrogantly rejecting the old French name used since the pioneer days of
Champlain. This means an early morning start and six or seven
hours--the steamers are not swift--on that great river. Only less than a
mile apart are its rugged banks at Quebec but, even then, they seem to
contract the mighty torrent of water flowing between them. Once past
Quebec the river broadens into a great basin, across which we see the
head of the beautiful Island of Orleans. We skirt, on the south side, the
twenty miles of the island's well wooded shore, dotted with the cottages
of the habitants, stretched irregularly along the winding road. Church
spires rise at intervals; the people are Catholic to a man. Once past this
island we begin to note changes. Hardly any longer is the St. Lawrence
a river; rather is it now an inlet of the sea; the water has become salt;
the air is fresher. So wide apart are the river's shores that the cottages
far away to the south seem only white specks.
Hugging the north shore closely we draw in under towering Cap
Tourmente, fir-clad, rising nearly two thousand feet above us; a mighty
obstacle it has always been to communication by land on this side of
the river. Soon comes a great cleft in the mountains, and before us is
Baie St. Paul, opening up a wide vista to the interior. We are getting
into the Malbaie country for Isle aux Coudres, an island some six miles
long, opposite Baie St. Paul, was formerly linked with Malbaie under
one missionary priest. The north shore continues high and rugged.
After passing Les Eboulements, a picturesque village, far above us on
the mountain side, we round Cap aux Oies, in English, unromantically,
Goose Cape, and, far in front, lies a great headland, sloping down to the
river in bold curves. On this side of the headland we can see nestling in
under the cliff what, in the distance, seems only a tiny quay. It is the
wharf of Malbaie. The open water beyond it, stretching across to Cap à
l'Aigle, marks the mouth of the bay. The great river, now twelve miles
broad, with a surging tide, rising sometimes eighteen or twenty feet,
has the strength and majesty almost of Old Ocean himself.

As we land we see nothing striking. There is just a long wharf with
some cottages clustered at the foot of the cliff. But when we have
ascended the short stretch of winding road that leads over the barrier of
cliff we discover the real beauties of Malbaie. Before us lies the bay's
semi-circle--perhaps five miles in extent; stretching far inland is a
broad valley, with sides sloping up to rounded fir-clad mountain tops. It
is the break in the mountains and the views up the valley that give the
place its peculiar beauty. When the tide is out the bay itself is only a
great stretch of brown sand, with many scattered boulders, and
gleaming silver pools of water. Looking down upon it, one sees a small
river winding across the waste of sand and rocks. It has risen in the far
upland three thousand feet above this level and has made an arduous
downward way, now by narrow gorges, more rarely across open spaces,
where it crawls lazily in the summer sunlight:--les eaux mortes, the
French Canadians call such stretches. It bursts at length through the last
barrier of mountains, a stream forty or fifty yards wide, and flows
noisily, for some ten miles, in successive rapids, down this valley, here
at last to mingle its brown waters with the ice-cold, steel-tinted, St.
Lawrence.
When the tide is in, the bay