A Yankee in Canada by Henry David Thoreau

Author:Henry David Thoreau
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Henry David, Americans--Travel--Québec (Province)--History--19th century., Québec (Province)--Description and travel., Thoreau, Montréal (Québec)--Description and travel., Québec (Province)--Social life and customs--19th century., 1817-1862--Travel--Québec (Province), Québec (Québec)--Description and travel.
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2018-01-05T18:15:32+00:00

IV The Walls of Quebec

After spend­ing the night at a farm­house in Château-Richer, about a dozen miles north­east of Que­bec, we set out on our re­turn to the city. We stopped at the next house, a pic­turesque old stone mill, over the Chipré—for so the name sounded—such as you will nowhere see in the States, and asked the millers the age of the mill. They went up stairs to call the mas­ter; but the crabbed old miser asked why we wanted to know, and would tell us only for some com­pen­sa­tion. I wanted French to give him a piece of my mind. I had got enough to talk on a pinch, but not to quar­rel; so I had to come away, look­ing all I would have said. This was the ut­most in­ci­vil­ity we met with in Canada. In Beau­port, within a few miles of Que­bec, we turned aside to look at a church which was just be­ing com­pleted—a very large and hand­some ed­i­fice of stone, with a green bough stuck in its gable, of some sig­nif­i­cance to Catholics. The com­par­a­tive wealth of the Church in this coun­try was ap­par­ent; for in this vil­lage we did not see one good house be­sides. They were all hum­ble cot­tages; and yet this ap­peared to me a more im­pos­ing struc­ture than any church in Bos­ton. But I am no judge of these things.

Reen­ter­ing Que­bec through St. John’s Gate, we took a caleche in Mar­ket Square for the Falls of the Chaudière, about nine miles south­west of the city, for which we were to pay so much, be­side forty sous for tolls. The driver, as usual, spoke French only. The num­ber of these ve­hi­cles is very great for so small a town. They are like one of our chaises that has lost its top, only stouter and longer in the body, with a seat for the driver where the dasher is with us, and broad leather ears on each side to pro­tect the rid­ers from the wheel and keep chil­dren from fall­ing out. They had an easy jaunt­ing look, which, as our hours were num­bered, per­suaded us to be rid­ers. We met with them on ev­ery road near Que­bec these days, each with its com­ple­ment of two in­quis­i­tive-look­ing for­eign­ers and a Cana­dian driver, the for­mer ev­i­dently en­joy­ing their novel ex­pe­ri­ence, for com­monly it is only the horse whose lan­guage you do not un­der­stand; but they were one re­move fur­ther from him by the in­ter­ven­tion of an equally un­in­tel­li­gi­ble driver. We crossed the St. Lawrence to Point Levi in a French-Cana­dian fer­ry­boat, which was in­con­ve­nient and dirty, and man­aged with great noise and bus­tle. The cur­rent was very strong and tu­mul­tuous, and the boat tossed enough to make some sick, though it was only a mile across; yet the wind was not to be com­pared with that of the day be­fore, and we saw that the Cana­di­ans had a good ex­cuse for not tak­ing us over to the Isle of Or­leans in a pirogue, how­ever shift­less they may be for not hav­ing pro­vided any other con­veyance.

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