They
intersect from east to west the expanse, nine miles in length, from Cap
Rouge to the city. These well known chief arteries of travel were solidly
macadamized in 1841. At the western point, looms out the oak and pine clad
cliffs of a lofty cape - Cap Rouge or Redclyffe. Here wintered, in
1541-2, the discoverer of Canada, Cartier and his followers, here, in
1543-4, his celebrated follower, Roberval, seems also to have sojourned
during the dreary months of winter.
A small stream, at the foot of the cape, meanders in a north westerly
direction through St. Augustin and neighbouring parishes, forming a deep
valley all around the cape. The conformation of the land has led
geologists to infer that, at some remote period, the plateau, extending to
Quebec, must have been surrounded on all sides by water, the Cap Rouge
stream and St. Charles being the outlets on the west, north and east. This
area increases in altitude until it reaches the lofty summit of Cape
Diamond, its eastern boundary. Nature itself seems to have placed these
rugged heights as an insurmountable barrier to invasion from the St.
Lawrence. With the walls, bastion and heavy city guns; with artillery in
position on the Cap Rouge promontory; cavalry patrolling the Sillery
heights; a numerous army on the only accessible portion of the coast -
Beauport, Quebec, if succoured in time, was tolerably safe; so thought
some of the French engineers, though not Montcalm.
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