:

BOURGEOIS.--Par-derriere chez ma tante,
Par-derriere chez ma tante.

CHORUS.--Par-derriere chez ma tante,
Par-derriere chez ma tante.

BOURGEOIS.--Il y a un coq qui chante,
Des pommes, des poires, des raves, des choux,
Des figues nouvelles, des raisins doux.

CHORUS.--Des pommes, des poires, des raves, des choux,
Des figues nouvelles, des raisins doux.

BOURGEOIS.--Il y a un coq qui chante,
Il y a un coq qui chante.

CHORUS.--Il y a un coq qui chante, etc.

BOURGEOIS.--Demande une femme a prendre,
Des pommes, des poires, des raves, des choux, etc.

CHORUS.--Des pommes, dos poires, etc.

BOURGEOIS.--Demande une femme a prendre,
Demande une femme a, etc.

And thus it continues until the advice is given successively,

Ne prenez pas une noire,
Car elles aiment trop a boire,
Ne prenez pas une rousse,
Car elles sont trop jalouses.

And by the time all the different qualifications are rehearsed and
objected to, lengthened out by the interminable repetition of the
chorus, the shout of the bourgeois is heard--

"Whoop la! a terre, a terre--pour la pipe!"

It is an invariable custom for the voyageurs to stop every five or six
miles to rest and smoke, so that it was formerly the way of measuring
distances--"so many pipes," instead of "so many miles."

The Canadian melodies are sometimes very beautiful, and a more
exhilarating mode of travel can hardly be imagined than a voyage over
these waters, amid all the wild magnificence of nature, with the
measured strokes of the oar keeping time to the strains of "_Le Rosier
Blanc_," "En roulant ma Boule_," or "_Leve ton pied, ma jolie Bergere."_

The climax of fun seemed to be in a comic piece, which, however oft
repeated, appeared never to grow stale. It was somewhat after this
fashion:

BOURGEOIS.--Michaud est monte dans un prunier,
Pour treiller des prunes.
La branche a casse--

CHORUS.--Michaud a tombe?

BOURGEOIS.--Ou est-ce qu'il est?

CHORUS.--Il est en bas.

BOURGEOIS.--Oh! reveille, reveille, reveille,
Oh! reveille, Michaud est en haut![6]

It was always a point of etiquette to look astonished at the luck of
Michaud in remaining in the tree, spite of the breaking of the branch,
and the joke had to be repeated through