The Backwoods of Canada | Page 8

guard of soldiers.
There is also a temporary fort at some distance from the hospital,
containing a garrison of soldiers, who are there to enforce the
quarantine rules. These rules are considered as very defective, and in
some respects quite absurd, and are productive of many severe evils to
the unfortunate emigrants.
When the passengers and crew of a vessel do not exceed a certain
number, they are not allowed to land under a penalty, both to the
captain and the offender; but if, on the contrary, they should exceed the
stated number, ill or well, passengers and crew must all turn out and go
on shore, taking with them their bedding and clothes, which are all
spread out on the shore, to be washed, aired, and fumigated, giving the
healthy every chance of taking the infection from the invalids. The
sheds and buildings put up for the accommodation of those who are
obliged to submit to the quarantine laws, are it the same area as the
hospital.
[* It is to be hoped that some steps will be taken by Government to
remedy these obnoxious laws which have repeatedly entailed those
very evils on the unhappy emigrants that the Board of Health wish to
avert from the colony at large.

Many valuable lives have been wantonly sacrificed by placing the
healthy in the immediate vicinity of infection, besides subjecting them
to many other sufferings, expenses, and inconvenience, which the poor
exile might well be spared.
If there must be quarantine laws--and I suppose the evil is a necessary
one--surely every care ought to be taken to render them as little hurtful
to the emigrant as possible.]
Nothing can exceed the longing desire I feel to be allowed to land and
explore this picturesque island; the weather is so fine, and the waving
groves of green, the little rocky bays and inlets of the island, appear so
tempting; but to all my entreaties the visiting surgeon who came on
board returned a decided negative.
A few hours after his visit, however, an Indian basket, containing
strawberries and raspberries, with a large bunch of wild flowers, was
sent on board for me, with the surgeon's compliments.
I amuse myself with making little sketches of the fort and the
surrounding scenery, or watching the groups of emigrants on shore. We
have already seen the landing of the passengers of three emigrant ships.
You may imagine yourself looking on a fair or crowded market, clothes
waving in the wind or spread out on the earth, chests, bundles, baskets,
men, women, and children, asleep or basking in the sun, some in
motion busied with their goods, the women employed in washing or
cooking in the open air, beside the wood fires on the beach; while
parties of children are pursuing each other in wanton glee rejoicing in
their newly-acquired liberty. Mixed with these you see the stately form
and gay trappings of the sentinels, while the thin blue smoke of the
wood fires, rising above the trees, heightens the picture and gives it an
additional effect. On my husband remarking the picturesque appearance
of scene before us to one of the officers from the fort who had come on
board, he smiled sadly, and replied, "Believe me, in this instance, as in
many others, 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view." Could you
take a nearer survey of some of those very picturesque groups which
you admire, I think you would turn away from them with heart sickness;
you would there behold every variety of disease, vice, poverty, filth,
and famine--human misery in its most disgusting and saddening form.
Such pictures as Hogarth's pencil only could have pourtrayed, or
Crabbe's pen described.

August 14.--We are once more under weigh, and floating up the river
with the tide. Gros Isle is just five and twenty miles below Quebec, a
favourable breeze would carry us up in a few hours; as it is we can only
make a little way by tacking from side to side when we lose the tide. I
rather enjoy this way of proceeding, as it gives one a close view of both
sides the river, which narrows considerably as we approach nearer
towards Quebec. To-morrow, if no accident happens, we shall be
anchored in front of a place rendered interesting both by its historical
associations and its own native beauty of situation. Till to-morrow, then,
adieu.
I was reckoning much on seeing the falls of Montmorenci, which are
within sight of the river; but the sun set, and the stars rose brilliantly
before we approached within sound of the cataract; and though I
strained my eyes till they were weary of gazing on the dim shadowy
scene around me, I could distinguish nothing beyond the dark masses
of rock that forms the channel