There are yet among the living in Quebec many who can recall the good
olden times when our garrison contained two regiments and more of the red-
coated soldiers of England, at the beck of the "Iron Duke" - him of
Waterloo.
A Haligonian tourist thus writes: -
"HALIFAX, N. S., 1880. - I reached Halifax on the Saturday after
leaving Quebec.....Nothing was wanting to make my impressions of
Quebec perfect, but a little more time to widen, deepen and strengthen
the friendships made; alas! to be severed (for a time) so soon. I went
expecting to see a city perched on a rock and inhabited by the
descendants of a conquered race with a chasm between them and every
Englishman in the Dominion. In place of this, I found the city more
picturesque, more odd, more grand, than I had ever imagined, and
peopled by a race who, if conquered in 1759, have had sweet revenge
ever since, by making a conquest of every stranger who has entered
Quebec - through his higher nature. It is no wonder that Quebec has
such a story of song and adventure. There is romance in the river and
tragedy on the hill, and while the memory of Wolfe and Montcalm is
green, the city will be the Mecca of the Dominion. But keep the hand
of the Goth - the practical man - from touching the old historic
landmarks of the city. A curse has been pronounced on those who remove
their neighbours' landmark, but what shall be said of those who remove
the landmarks which separate century from century and period from
period." (J. T. Bulmer.)
The following affords a good specimen of Capt W. F Butler's pictorial
style: -
"Spring breaks late over the province of Quebec - that portion of
America known to our fathers as Lower Canada, and of old to the
subjects of the Grand Monarque as the kingdom of New France. But when
the young trees begin to open their leafy lids after the long sleep of
winter, they do it quickly. The snow is not all gone before the maple
trees are all green - the maple, that most beautiful of trees! Well has
Canada made the symbol of her new nationality that tree whose green
gives the spring its earliest freshness, whose autumn-dying tints are
richer than the clouds of sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than
honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long summer with the
scent and the hum of bee and flower! Still the long line of the
Canadas admits of a varied spring. When the trees are green at Lake
St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at
Montreal, and Quebec is white with snow. Even between Montreal and
Quebec, a short night's steaming, there exists a difference of ten
days in the opening of the summer. But late as comes the summer to
Quebec, it comes in its loveliest and most enticing form, as though it
wished to atone for its long delay in banishing from such a landscape
the cold tyranny of winter.
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