only stunned, so as to enable the hunters to approach near enough to
despatch him with their harpoons.

Seals in great numbers haunt the mouths of the tributaries here,
attracted by the travelling salmon, upon which they commit sad
depredations, often following them even into the fishermen's nets. The
hunting of seals is carried on chiefly in the winter time, when the
great river is partially blocked up with ice. About twenty-five years
ago, at a place called Trois Pistoles, on the south bank, an immense
number of seals made their appearance upon the ice just after it had
become fixed along the shore. Seals are reckoned valuable game in those
parts, and the inhabitants of the parish, armed with clubs, turned out
to chase them, under the direction of six priests. They had killed some
four hundred, when suddenly the ice parted from the shore, and went
drifting down with the tide, priests, _habitans_, seals, and all. Down
they drifted, past dreary shores, the sparse inhabitants of which did
all they could to aid them, but succeeded in taking off only a few in
their canoes. On, on, still they floated, past other parishes, where
people knelt and prayed loudly for them on the shore; then past other
parishes, again, where the canoe-men were more adventurous, and picked
the poor fellows off the ice in detail, until every one of them was
brought safely to land, yet not before they had suffered great hardship
from cold and fright. The old French Canadian from whom I heard this was
one of the hunters on the occasion; and although he expressed exceeding
gratitude to _le bon Dieu_ for the rescue of himself and his companions,
yet he had words of lamentation for the loss of the seals, not one of
which was recovered.

A primitive and interesting race are the French Canadians of these
coasts. Many of their villages, and churches--the latter with very steep
roofs, generally painted red--have a quaint, antiquated air, and some of
the settlements hereabouts are really of very remote date. Wind-bound
for a couple of days at one of the oldest and queerest of these
villages, on a forlorn little bay, not far from the Saguenay, I went
ashore to observe the manners and customs of the place. By the threshold
of every house there lay two or three pair of huge wooden clogs, looking
almost like "dug-out" canoes, and into these the people popped their
feet when the roads were muddy, and their occupations obliged them to go
out of doors. A large wo