endix, No. XVI. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 117: The Jesuits always retained the superior position they
held from the first among the Roman Catholic missionaries of Canada.
There is a well-known Canadian proverb, "Pour faire un Recollet il faut
une hachette, pour un Pretre un ciseau, mais pour un Jesuite il faut un
pinceau." See Appendix, No. XVII., (see Vol II) for Professor Kalm's
account of these three classes.]

CHAPTER IV.

Having followed the course of discovery and settlement in New France up
to the death of the man who stamped the first permanent impression upon
that country, it is now time to review its character and condition at
the period when it became the abode of a civilized people. Champlain's
deputed commission of governor gave him authority over all that France
possessed or claimed on the continent and islands of North America;
Newfoundland, Isle Royale, and Acadia, were each portions of this vast
but vague territory; and those unknown, boundless solitudes of ice and
snow, lying toward the frozen north, whose very existence was a
speculation, were also, by the shadowy right of a European king, added
to his wide dominion. Of that portion, however, called Canada, it is
more especially the present subject to treat.

Canada is a vast plain, irregular in elevation and feature, forming a
valley between two ranges of high land; one of these ranges divides it,
to the north, from the dreary territories of Hudson's Bay; the other, to
the south, from the republic of the United States and the British
province of New Brunswick. None of the hills rise to any great height;
with one exception, Man's Hill, in the State of Maine, 2000 feet is
their greatest altitude above the sea. The elevated districts are,
however, of very great extent, broken, rugged, and rocky, clothed with
dense forests, intersected with rapid torrents, and varied with
innumerable lakes. The great plain of Canada narrows to a mere strip of
low land by the side of the St. Lawrence, as it approaches the eastern
extremity. From Quebec to the gulf on the north side, and toward Gaspe
on the south, the grim range of mountains reaches almost to the water's
edge; westward of that city the plain expands, gradually widening into a
district of great beauty and fertility; again, westward of Montreal, the
level country becomes far wider and very rich, including the broad and
valuable flats that lie along the lower waters of the Ottawa. The rocky,
elevat