Picturesque Quebec | Page 8

as Lower Canada, and of old to the subjects of the Grand Monarque as the kingdom of New France. But when the young trees begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of winter, they do it quickly. The snow is not all gone before the maple trees are all green--the maple, that most beautiful of trees! Well has Canada made the symbol of her new nationality that tree whose green gives the spring its earliest freshness, whose autumn-dying tints are richer than the clouds of sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long summer with the scent and the hum of bee and flower! Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring. When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at Montreal, and Quebec is white with snow. Even between Montreal and Quebec, a short night's steaming, there exists a difference of ten days in the opening of the summer. But late as comes the summer to Quebec, it comes in its loveliest and most enticing form, as though it wished to atone for its long delay in banishing from such a landscape the cold tyranny of winter. And with what loveliness does the whole face of plain, river, lake and mountain turn from the iron clasp of icy winter to kiss the balmy lips of returning summer, and to welcome his bridal gifts of sun and shower! The trees open their leafy lids to look at him--the brooks and streamlets break forth into songs of gladness--"the birch tree," as the old Saxon said," becomes beautiful in its branches, and rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and fro by the breath of heaven"--the lakes uncover their sweet faces, and their mimic shores steal down in quiet evenings to bathe themselves in the transparent waters--far into the depths of the great forest speeds the glad message of returning glory, and graceful fern, and soft velvet moss, and white wax-like lily peep forth to cover rock and fallen tree and wreck of last year's autumn in one great sea of foliage. There are many landscapes which can never be painted, photographed, or described, but which the mind carries away instinctively to look at again and again in the after-time--these are the celebrated views of the world, and they are not easy to find. From the Queen's rampart, on the citadel of Quebec, the eye sweeps over a greater diversity of landscape than is probably to be found in any one spot in the universe. Blue mountain, far-stretching river, foaming cascade, the white sails of ocean ships, the black trunks of many- sized guns, the pointed roofs, the white village nestling amidst its fields of green, the great isle in mid-channel, the many shades of colour from deep blue pine-wood to yellowing corn-field--in what other spot on the earth's broad bosom lie grouped together in a single glance so many of these "things of beauty" which the eye loves to feast on and to place in memory as joys for ever?" (_The Great Lone Land._)
Let us complete this mosaic of descriptions and literary gems, borrowed from English, French and American writers, by a sparkling tableau of the historic memories of Quebec, traced by a French Canadian _litt��rateur_, the Honourable P. J. O. Chauveau:--
"History is everywhere--around us, beneath us; from the depths of yonder valleys, from the top of that mountain, history rises up and presents itself to our notice, exclaiming: 'Behold me!'
"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 L��vis 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. H��l��ne, 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