nly to rude savages, wild as the beasts of chase they
hunted in those strange regions.

Across the broad valley of the St. Charles, covered with green fields
and ripening harvests, and dotted with quaint old homesteads, redolent
with memories of Normandy and Brittany, rose a long mountain ridge
covered with primeval woods, on the slope of which rose the glittering
spire of Charlebourg, once a dangerous outpost of civilization. The
pastoral Lairet was seen mingling its waters with the St. Charles in
a little bay that preserves the name of Jacques Cartier, who with his
hardy companions spent their first winter in Canada on this spot, the
guests of the hospitable Donacana, lord of Quebec and of all the lands
seen from its lofty cape.

Directly beneath the feet of the Governor, on a broad strip of land that
lay between the beach and the precipice, stood the many-gabled Palace
of the Intendant, the most magnificent structure in New France. Its long
front of eight hundred feet overlooked the royal terraces and gardens,
and beyond these the quays and magazines, where lay the ships of
Bordeaux, St. Malo, and Havre, unloading the merchandise and luxuries of
France in exchange for the more rude, but not less valuable, products of
the Colony.

Between the Palace and the Basse Ville the waves at high tide washed
over a shingly beach where there were already the beginnings of a
street. A few rude inns displayed the sign of the fleur-de-lis or the
imposing head of Louis XV. Round the doors of these inns in summer-time
might always be found groups of loquacious Breton and Norman sailors in
red caps and sashes, voyageurs and canoemen from the far West in half
Indian costume, drinking Gascon wine and Norman cider, or the still
more potent liquors filled with the fires of the Antilles. The Batture
kindled into life on the arrival of the fleet from home, and in the
evenings of summer, as the sun set behind the Cote a Bonhomme, the
natural magnetism of companionship drew the lasses of Quebec down to
the beach, where, amid old refrains of French ditties and the music of
violins and tambours de Basque, they danced on the green with the jovial
sailors who brought news from the old land beyond the Atlantic.

"Pardon me, gentlemen, for keeping you waiting," said the Governor, as
he descended from the bastion and rejoined his suite. "I am so proud of
our beautiful Quebec that I can scarcely stop showing off its charms
to my friend Herr Kalm,