h side of the wooden frame. It is not a vehicle for those sensitive
to slight jars. The driver sits in a tiny seat in front and one is
amazed at the agility with which even old men spring from this perch to
walk up and down the steep hills. Their ponies are beautiful little
animals, specially fitted by a long development for work in this hilly
country. So well do they mount its heights that travellers repeat an
unconfirmed tradition of their having been known to climb trees!

It is not strange that in our happy summer days we acquire a deep
affection for this northern region, its brilliant colouring, its crisp
air. Not its least charm is in the cheerful and kindly people. One would
not have them speak any other tongue than their French, preserving here
archaic usages, with new words for new things, influenced of course by
English, but still the beautiful language of an older France than the
France of to-day. The people have their own tragedies. One sees pale
women, over-worked. The physician's skill is too little sought; the
country ranges are very remote; it is difficult and expensive to get
medical aid; and there are deformed cripples who might have been made
whole by skill applied in time. Consumption too is here a dread
scourge, though against it a strenuous campaign has now begun. Many
children are born but too many die. Still, most of the people live in
comfort and they enjoy life--enjoy it probably much more than would an
Anglo-Saxon community of the same type.

We who are among them in the summer are citizens of another and an
unknown world. New York and Chicago, Boston and Washington, Toronto and
Montreal are to us realities with one or other of which, in some way,
each of us is linked. To this simple people they are all merely that
outer world whence come their fleeting visitors of summer, as out of the
unknown come the migrant birds to pause and rest awhile. We bring with
us substantial material benefits; but it is not clear that our moral
influence is good. Leaving his farm the habitant brings to the village
his horse and caleche to become a hired _charretier_. He often gets good
fares but there is much idle waiting. Bad habits are formed and regular
industry is discouraged. The cure finds Malbaie a difficult sphere. We
alone get unmixed benefit from this fair scene, its days of glad
serenity, and of almost solemn stillness, when even a bird's note is
heard but rarely.

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