Sailing down the river, group after group of big and little green islands are pa.s.sed, the winding route and tortuous channels marked by diminutive lighthouses and beacons, while nearly every island has its cottages and often ornate and elaborate villas. Everywhere the sh.o.r.es appear to be granite rocks, bright green foliage varying with the darker evergreens surmounting them. All the waters are brilliantly green and clear as crystal, rippled by breezes laden with balsamic odors from the adjacent forests. Attractive cottages everywhere appear, with little attendant boat-houses down by the water side, and canoes and skiffs are in limitless supply, as the chief travelling is by them. Everything seems to be full of life; in all directions are pleasant views, the surface is dotted with pleasure-boats and white-sailed yachts, the whole region being semi-amphibious, and its people spending as much time on the water as on the land. The river, too, is a great highway of commerce among these islands, many large vessels pa.s.sing along, and timber rafts guided by puffing little tugs.
Much of the product of the Canadian forests is thus taken to market, a good deal going to Europe, and the sentimental and often musical Metis, who live aboard in huts or tents, are the raftsmen, working the broad sails and big steering-paddles on the tedious floating journey down to Quebec. There are many large hotels, and the big one on Round Island is named for Louis XIV."s chivalrous and fiery Governor of Canada, Count de Frontenac. His remains are buried in the Basilica at Quebec, and his heart, enclosed in a leaden casket, was sent home to his widow in France. She was much younger, and, evidently piqued at some of his alleged love affairs, refused to receive it, saying she would not have a dead heart which had not been hers while living. The Baptists have a summer settlement on Round Island, and a short distance below the extensive Wellesley Island has on its upper end the popular Methodist summer town of the Thousand Island Park, where little cottages and tents around the great Tabernacle often take care of ten thousand people. Upon the lower end the Presbyterians have established their attractive resort, Westminster Park, which faces Alexandria Bay.
ALEXANDRIA BAY.
The chief settlement of the archipelago is the village of Alexandria Bay on the New York sh.o.r.e, and in the s.p.a.cious reach of the river in front are the most famous and costly of the island cottages. Here are large hotels and many lodging-places, with a swelling population in the height of the season. Some of the island structures are unique--tall castles, palaces, imitations of iron-clads, forts and turrets--and many have been very costly. As most of the summer residents are Americans, those cottages are chiefly on the American side of the boundary, but there is also quite a group of island cottages over near the Canadian sh.o.r.e adjacent to the village of Gananoque. Alexandria Bay is a diminutive indentation in the New York sh.o.r.e, with a little red lighthouse out in front, while over to the northeast is spread a galaxy of the most famous islands, having fifty or more pretentious cottages scattered about the scene, amid the green foliage surmounting the rocky island foundations. In every direction go off channels among them of sparkling, dancing, green water, giving fine vista views, the dark crags at the water"s edge underlying the frame of green foliage bounding the picture. The population has an aquatic flavor, and everybody seems to go about in boats, while the place has the air of a purely pleasure resort, evidently frozen up and hybernating when the tide of summer travel ebbs. In the season, the village presents a nightly carnival with its many-colored lights and dazzling fireworks displays over the rippling waters. For miles below Alexandria Bay, the islands stud the waters, although not so numerous nor so closely together as they are above. The largest of these is the long and narrow Grenadier Island in mid-river. Farther down they are usually small, some being only isolated rocks almost awash. The last of the islands are at Brockville, twenty-five miles below Alexandria Bay--the group of "Three Sisters," one large and two smaller, apparently dropped into the river opposite the town as if intended to support the piers of a bridge over to Morristown on the New York sh.o.r.e. This is an old and quiet Canadian town of nine thousand people, perpetuating the memory of General Sir Isaac Brock, who fell in the battle of Queenston Heights in October, 1812, and which is developing into a summer resort. Such is the charmed archipelago of attractive islands, unlike almost anything else in America, which brings so many pleasure and health seekers to the St. Lawrence to sing its praises:
"Fair St. Lawrence! What poet has sung of its grace As it sleeps in the sun, with its smile-dimpled face Beaming up to the sky that it mirrors! What brush Has e"er pictured the charm of the marvellous hush Of its silence; or caught the warm glow of its tints As the afternoon wanes, and the even-star glints In its beautiful depths? And what pen shall betray The sweet secrets that hide from men"s vision away In its solitude wild? "Tis the river of dreams; You may float in your boat on the bloom-bordered streams, Where its islands like emeralds matchless are set, And forget that you live; and as quickly forget That they die in the world you have left; for the calm Of content is within you, the blessing of balm Is upon you forever."
SHOOTING THE RAPIDS.
Ogdensburg is an active port on the St. Lawrence about twenty miles below Brockville, having a railroad through the Adirondacks over to Rouse"s Point on Lake Champlain. Here flow in the dark-brown waters of the Oswegatchie, the Indian "Black River," coming out of those forests, which commingle in sharp contrast with the clear green current of the greater river. Prescott, antiquated and time-worn, is on the Canadian bank. The sh.o.r.es are generally low, with patches of woodland and farms, and the St. Lawrence below Ogdensburg begins to go down the rapids, having tranquil lakes and long wide stretches of placid waters intervening. The first rapid is the "Galop," flowing among flat gra.s.s-covered islands, with swift moving waters, but a small affair, scarcely discernible as the steamboat goes through it.
The next one, the "Plat," is also pa.s.sed without much trouble, and then a line of whitecaps ahead indicates the beginning of the "Long Sault," the most extensive rapid on the river. This is the "Long Leap," a rapid running for nine miles, its waters rushing down the rocky ledges at a speed of twenty miles an hour. All steam is shut off, and the river steamer is carried along by the movement of the seething, roaring current, the surface appearing much like the ocean in a storm. The rocking, sinking deck beneath one"s feet gives a strange and startling sensation, and looking back at the incline down which the boat is sliding, it seems like a great angry wall of water chasing along from behind. An elongated island divides the channel through the "Long Sault," and there are other low islands adjacent; the boat, swaying among the rocks over which the waves leap in fury, being now lifted on their crests, and then dropped between them, but all the while gliding down hill, until still water and safety are reached at Cornwall. Here begins the northern boundary of New York, which goes due east through the Chateaugay forests across the land to Lake Champlain, and large factories front the river, getting their power from the waters above the rapid.
Below Cornwall, which has an industrial population of some seven thousand, and the Indian village of St. Regis opposite, the St.
Lawrence is wholly within Canada, and far off to the southeast rise the dark and distant Adirondack ranges. Soon the river broadens into the sluggish Lake St. Francis, at the head of which two well-known Adirondack streams flow in, the Racquette and St. Regis Rivers. The ancient village of St. Regis has its old church standing up conspicuously with a bright tin roof, for the air is so dry that tin is not painted in the Dominion. The bell hanging in the spire was sent out from France for the early Indian mission, but before landing, the vessel carrying it was captured by a colonial privateer and taken into Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts. The bell, with other booty from the prize, was sold and sent to a church in Deerfield, then on the Ma.s.sachusetts frontier. The St. Regis Huron Indians heard of this, and making a long march down there, recaptured their bell, ma.s.sacred forty-seven people, and carried all the rest who could not escape, one hundred and twenty of them, including the church pastor and his family, captives back to Canada. Thus they brought the bell in triumph to St. Regis, and it has since hung undisturbed in the steeple, although the Indians who now hear it have become very few. The lake is twenty-eight miles long and very monotonous, although a distinguishing landmark is furnished by the ma.s.sive buildings of St. Aniset Church, seen from afar on the southern sh.o.r.e.
Coteau, at the end of the lake, has a railway swinging drawbridge, carrying the Canada Atlantic Railroad over, and below is another series of rapids. These are the "Coteau," with about two miles of swift current, making but slight impression; and then the "Cedars,"
"Split Rock," and the "Cascades." The "Cedars" give a sensation, being composed of layers of rock down which the boat slides, as if settling from one ledge suddenly down to another, producing a curious feeling.
It was here, in 1759, that General Amherst, by a sad mishap, had three hundred troops drowned. The "Split Rock" rapid is named from enormous boulders standing at its entrance, and a dangerous reef can be distinctly seen from the deck as the steamer apparently runs directly upon it, until the pilot swerves the boat aside, seemingly just in time. Then, tossing for a few moments upon the white-crested waves of the "Cascades," the steamer glides peacefully upon the tranquil surface of Lake St. Louis, which is fifteen miles long, and receives from the north the Ottawa River. Each little village on the banks of the lake and rivers is conspicuous from the large Roman Catholic Church around which it cl.u.s.ters, the steep bright tin roof and spire far out-topping all the other buildings. At the lower end of the lake a series of light-ships guide vessels into Lachine Ca.n.a.l, which goes down to Montreal, avoiding Lachine rapids, three miles long, the shortest series, but most violent of them all. Here, at the head of the rapids, stood the early French explorer, sent out to search for "the road to Cathay," and looking over the great lake spread out before him, with a view like old ocean, he shouted "La Chine!" for he thought that China was beyond it. The Canadian Pacific Railway bridge spans the river, and skirting the southern sh.o.r.e is the Indian town of Caughnawaga, with its little old houses and light stone church, the "village on the rapids." The steamboat then slides down Lachine rapids, the most difficult and dangerous pa.s.sage of all, though it lasts but a few minutes--the exciting inclined plane of water, with rocks ahead and rocks beneath, indicated by swift and foaming cataracts running over and between them, and by stout thumps against the keel, sometimes making every timber shiver, and the apparent danger giving keen zest to the termination of the voyage. These rapids pa.s.sed, the current below quickly floats the steamboat under the great Victoria tubular bridge, carrying the Grand Trunk Railway over, and the broad stone quays of Montreal are spread along the bank, with rank after rank of n.o.ble buildings behind them, and the tall twin towers of Notre Dame Cathedral rising beyond, glistening under the rays of the setting sun.
THE CITY OF MONTREAL.
The delta of the great Ottawa--the "river of the traders," as the Indians named it, debouching by several mouths into the St. Lawrence, of which it is the chief tributary, makes a number of islands, and Montreal stands on the southeastern side of the largest of them, with the broad river flowing in front. St. Mary"s current runs strongly past the quays, and out there are the pretty wooded mounds of St.
Helen"s Island, named after Helen Boulle, the child-wife of Samuel de Champlain, the first European woman who came to Canada. She was only twelve years old when he married her, he being aged forty-four, and after his death she became an Ursuline nun. The miles of city water-front are superbly faced with long-walled quays of solid limestone masonry, and marked by jutting piers enclosing basins for the protection of the shipping against the powerful current. At the extremities of the rows of shipping, on either hand, up and down stream, loom the huge grain elevators. The piers are about ten feet lower than the walled embankment fronting the city, this being done to allow the ice to pa.s.s over them when it breaks up at the end of winter, the movement--called the "Ice Shove"--being an imposing sight.
The elongated Victoria Bridge stands upon its row of gray limestone piers guarding the horizon up-river to the southward. Many storehouses and stately buildings rise behind the wharves, and beyond these are myriads of steeples, spires and domes, with the lofty Notre Dame towers in front. The background is made by the imposing mountain giving Montreal its name, called Mont Real originally, and now known as Mount Royal, rising to an elevation of nine hundred feet. Few cities of its size can boast so many fine buildings. The excellent building-stone of the neighborhood, a gray limestone, is utilized extensively, and this adds to the ornamental appearance, the city rising upon a series of terraces stretching back from the river and giving many good sites for construction. Numerous, ma.s.sive and elaborate, the mult.i.tude of costly houses devoted to religion, trade and private residences are both a surprise and a charm. Mount Royal, rising boldly behind them, gives not only a n.o.ble background to the view from the river, but also a grand point of outlook, displaying their beauties to the utmost. The city has wide streets, generally lined with trees, and various public squares adding to the attractiveness.
But the most prominent characteristic of the Canadian metropolis is the astonishing number of its convents, churches, and pious houses for religious and charitable uses. Churches are everywhere, built by all denominations, many being most elaborate and costly. The religious zeal of the community, holding all kinds of ecclesiastical belief, has found special vent in the universal development of church building.
This commendable trait is their natural heritage, for the earliest French settlements on the St. Lawrence were largely due to religious zeal. When Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence upon his second voyage in 1535, he heard from the Indians at Quebec of a greater town far up the river, and bent upon exploration, he sailed in boats up to the Iroquois settlement of Hochelaga. Wrapped in forests behind it rose the great mountain which he named Mont Real, the "royal mountain," and in front, encompa.s.sed with corn-fields, was the Indian village, surrounded by triple rows of palisades. Landing, Cartier"s party were admitted within the defensive walls to the central public square, where the squaws examined them with the greatest curiosity, and the sick and lame Indians were brought up to be healed, the ancient historian writes, "as if a G.o.d had come down among them." No sooner had Cartier landed and been thus welcomed than he gave thanks to Heaven, and the warriors sat in silence while he read aloud the Pa.s.sion of Our Lord, though they understood not a word. The religious services over, he distributed presents, and the French trumpeters sounded a warlike melody, vastly pleasing the Indians. They conducted Cartier"s party to the summit of the mountain and showed them an extensive view over unbroken forests for many miles to the dark Adirondacks far away and the distant lighter green mountains, which he called the "Monts Verts," to the eastward. There is a tablet placed in Metcalfe Street near Sherbrooke Street which marks the supposed site of the Indian village of Hochelaga. In 1608, when Champlain came, Hochelaga had disappeared. The fierce Hurons had destroyed the village and driven out the Iroquois, who had gone far south to the Mohawk Valley.
For three-quarters of a century the French seem to have waited after Cartier"s voyages, before they made any serious attempt at settlement.
Then there came a great religious revival, and they planned to combine religion and conquest in a series of expeditions in the early seventeenth century under the auspices of patron saints and sinners whose names are numerously reproduced in the nomenclature of Quebec Province, in mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, capes, counties, towns and streets. It was chiefly due to Champlain, however, that the French foothold was obtained. This great explorer, known as the "Father of Canada," was noted alike for personal bravery and religious fervor.
His occupations in the New World were perilous journeys, prayers and fighting. He firmly planted the French race in America, and every characteristic then given "New France," as Canada was called, remains to-day in the Province of Quebec. His noted saying is preserved in the Canadian chronicles, that "the salvation of one soul is of more importance than the founding of a new empire." His system was to take possession for the Church and the French king, and then erect a cross and a chapel, around which the colony grew. During the half-century succeeding Champlain"s first voyage, many Recollet and Jesuit missionary priests came over, traversing the country and making converts among the Indians, so that there were established settlements, half-religious and half-military, forming alliances with the neighboring Huron and Algonquin Indians, and ultimately waging the almost perpetual wars with their English and Iroquois foes to the southward. Champlain, in 1608, founded Quebec, where Cartier had previously discovered the Indian village of Stadacona, meaning the "narrowing of the river." Champlain also, in subsequent voyages, discovered Lakes Champlain, Ontario and Nip.i.s.sing.
RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL.
The original settlement of Montreal was probably the most completely religious enterprise of the many early French colonizing expeditions to Canada. Dauversiere, a tax-gatherer of Anjou, was a religious devotee whose constant scourging with small chains and other torments, including a belt with more than twelve hundred sharp points, filled his father confessor with admiration. One day while at his devotions, an inward voice commanded him to found a new order of hospital nuns, and establish at the island called Mont Real in Canada a hospital or Hotel-Dieu for these nuns to conduct. But Mont Real being a wilderness where the hospital would be without patients, the island must be colonized to supply them, and the pious tax-gatherer was sorely perplexed. There was in Paris a young priest, Jean Jacques Olier, who was zealous and devout, and signalized his piety by much self-mortification, and one day while praying in church he thought he heard a voice from Heaven saying he was destined to be a light to the Gentiles, and that he was to form a society of priests and establish them on the island called Mont Real, in Canada, for the propagation of the true Faith. The old writers solemnly aver that both these men were totally ignorant of each other and of Canadian geography, yet they suddenly found themselves possessed, they knew not how, of the most exact details concerning the island, its size, shape, soil, productions, climate and situation; and they subsequently saw apparitions of the Virgin and the Saviour encouraging them in the great work. Dauversiere went to Paris seeking aid to carry out his task, and met Olier in a chateau in the suburbs; the two men, who never before had seen or heard of each other, became at once familiar, and under holy inspiration fondly embraced each other; the tax-gatherer received communion at the hands of the priest; and then for three hours they walked together in the park forming their plans.
They determined, as the pious chronicler records it, to "plant the banner of Christ in an abode of desolation and a haunt of demons, and to this end a band of priests and women were to invade the wilderness and take post between the fangs of the Iroquois." They believed in the mystic number, three, and proposed to found three religious communities--one of secular priests to direct the colonists and convert the Indians, one of nuns to nurse the sick, and one of nuns to teach the Faith to all the children, white and red.
But money and men and women were necessary for the work. Soon, four others were found who had wealth, and the six formed the germ of the "Society of Notre Dame de Montreal," and among them seventy-five thousand livres were raised, equal to about as many dollars. They purchased the island, and their grant was confirmed by the king, and then they got together a colony of forty men, and needing a soldier-governor, Providence provided such a man in Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout and valiant gentleman who had kept his faith intact, notwithstanding long service among the heretics of Holland, and loving his profession of arms, wished to consecrate his sword to the Church. The interest of the women was awakened, and ultimately the Society was increased to about forty-five persons, chosen for their devotion and their wealth. Among the women who founded the new colony was Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, who was about thirty-four years of age when the Society was organized, and to whom we are told that Christ had appeared in a vision at the early age of seven years, and at the same tender age her biographer says she had bound herself to G.o.d by a vow of perpetual chast.i.ty. Mlle. Mance, by the divine inspiration, was filled with a longing to go to Canada, and she went to the port of Roch.e.l.le seeking a vessel. She had never before heard of Dauversiere, but by supernatural agencies she met him coming out of church, had a long conversation in which she learned his plan, declared she had found her destiny in "the ocean, the wilderness, the solitude, the Iroquois," and at once decided to go with Maisonneuve and his party.
In February, 1641, with the Abbe Olier at their head, all the a.s.sociates of the Society a.s.sembled in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, before the altar of the Virgin, and by a most solemn ceremonial consecrated Mont Real to the Holy Family. It was henceforth to be a sacred town, called "Ville Marie de Montreal," and consecrated respectively, the Seminary of priests to Christ, the Hotel-Dieu to St.
Joseph, and the Nuns" College to the Virgin. Subsequently to the colonization there appeared, in 1653, as the head of the latter, a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys, a woman of most excellent good sense and a warm heart, who is described as having known neither miracles, ecstasies nor trances, her religion being of the affections and manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty. Late in the year the colony under Maisonneuve set sail, arriving too late, however, to ascend the St. Lawrence above Quebec, where they wintered. Here the Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, tried his best to dissuade them from going farther, desiring them to settle at Quebec, but Maisonneuve said, "It is my duty and my honor to found a colony at Montreal, and I would go if every tree were an Iroquois!" Here they gained an unexpected recruit in Madame de la Peltrie, foundress of the Order of Ursulines at Quebec, who abandoned their convent and carried off all the furniture she had lent them. In May, 1642, the party left Quebec in a flotilla of boats, deep laden with men, arms and stores, and a few days later approached Montreal island, when all on board raised a hymn of praise. Montmagny, who was to deliver possession of the island, was with them, and also Father Vimont, Superior of the missions, for the Jesuits had been invited to take spiritual charge of the young colony. On May 18, 1642, they landed at Montreal, at a spot where a little creek then flowed into the St. Lawrence, making a good landing-place, protected from the influence of the swift current of the river. There was a bordering meadow, and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. The triangular graystone building, which is now the Custom House, down by the river, marks this spot where the city was founded. The historian Parkman, who has so faithfully delved into the ancient Canadian archives, thus relates the story of the original settlement:
"Maisonneuve sprang ash.o.r.e and fell on his knees. His followers imitated his example, and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms and stores were landed. An altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant Charlotte Barre, decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders. Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont in the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall, his men cl.u.s.tering around him,--soldiers, sailors, artisans and laborers,--all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was over the priest turned and addressed them: "You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its branches overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the work of G.o.d. His smile is on you, and your children shall fill the land." The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and twilight came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow. They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung them before the altar where the Host remained exposed. Then they pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards, and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal." Thus was piously planted the "grain of mustard-seed" of the devout and enthusiastic Vimont, which has expanded into a great city of probably three hundred thousand people, over half of them French and more than three-fourths Catholics, there being also a large Irish population.
MONTREAL INSt.i.tUTIONS.
Montreal covers a surface five miles long by two miles wide, and its situation gives it great commercial importance. The people call it "the Queen of the St. Lawrence," standing at the head of ship navigation, where cargoes are exchanged with the internal ca.n.a.l and lake navigation system, the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway crossing the continent, and both also having many connections with the United States. In 1809, the "Accommodation," the second steamboat in America, was built in Montreal, and began running to Quebec. The lion of Montreal is the Victoria Tubular Bridge, which was formally opened by the Prince of Wales on his American visit in 1860. It was designed by Robert Stephenson and built by James Hodges at a cost of over $6,000,000. It is nearly ninety-two hundred feet long and stands upon twenty-six piers and abutments, the centre being about sixty feet above the summer level of the river, which flows beneath at the rate of seven miles an hour. Elaborate ice-fenders are on the up-stream side of the piers, there being an enormous ice-pressure when the spring freshets are running. It is the greatest bridge in the Dominion, and near it stands a huge boulder, marking the burial-place of the army of Irish emigrants who came over in 1847, sixty-five hundred dying at Montreal of ship-fever.
The Sulpician Order has always been the great educator of priests in all French-speaking peoples, and it was founded by the Abbe Olier.
Carrying out his intention, the "Seminary of St. Sulpice" was opened in Montreal in 1647. This is now an enormous and prosperous religious establishment, holding large possessions in and around the city. The "Gentlemen of the Seminary," as the members of the Order of Sulpicians are called in Montreal, are the successors of the first owners of the island, and they conduct a large secular business as landlords. Down in the heart of the old city, at the Place d"Armes, they have an antique quadrangle, surrounding a quiet garden, which is the official headquarters, and was the location of their ancient house. The curious French-looking towers fronting the Seminary were at one time loop-holed for musketry, and were garrisoned, when necessary, to beat off Indian raids upon the infant settlement. In the western suburbs there is a broad domain, known as the "Priests" Farm," where are an elaborate ma.s.s of buildings, making their present noted foundation, the "Great Seminary" and Montreal College, the former for the education of priests and the latter for the general education of youth, the delicious surrounding gardens being regarded as the finest on the fertile island.
The "Hospital of the Hotel-Dieu de Ville Marie" is on the northeastern edge of the city, almost under the shadow of the mountain, and is one of the largest buildings in Canada, its dome rising one hundred and fifty feet over the s.p.a.cious chapel. It was in this hospital, when first founded in a small way in 1647, that Mademoiselle Mance took up her abode. There are now over five hundred persons in the building, and it is conducted by eighty cloistered nuns, who never go outside the grounds. They are of the Order of St. Joseph, caring for the sick, the orphan, and the old and infirm. The "Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame," the "Black Nuns," as they are called, have their Mother House in Montreal, this being the teaching order founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1653, she having then come out to Canada with Maisonneuve on his second voyage. "To this day," writes Parkman, "in crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her un.o.btrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal." These "Black Nuns" conduct seventeen schools in the city, with over five thousand pupils. Their most extensive establishment is just out of town, on what are known as the "Monk Lands," and is called "Ville Marie." There are no less than six hundred nuns and novices in this order, and their pupils number twenty thousand in Canada and the United States.
Another important Montreal inst.i.tution is the "General Hospital of the Grey Sisters," popularly known as the "Grey Nunnery," occupying an extensive array of stone buildings in the southwestern part of the city. This order was first founded in 1692, but languished for nearly a half century, when a pious Canadian lady took it up. Originally it cared for the aged and infirm, but in 1755 this lady, Madame de Youville, discovered the body of a murdered infant, where is now Foundling Street, then a stream of water, into which the child had been thrown, and this led her to extend the objects of the inst.i.tution so as to embrace orphans and foundlings. This is the great foundling hospital of Montreal. The order has the revenues of large estates, and there are about four hundred nuns and novices, over half being detailed in a large number of establishments throughout Canada.
Several hundred foundlings are received every year, and over five hundred patients are cared for in Montreal, mostly the aged and infirm. The daughter of Ethan Allen, of Vermont, was a nun of this order, dying in 1819. This nunnery has many visitors, who attend worship with the Sisters in the beautiful chapel, and then go through the hospital, where the poor are cared for both in the morning and the evening of life. The crowds of little French children, dressed in the curious clothing of past centuries, sing for their visitors, and then comically scramble for the small coins tossed among them, which, after doing duty as playthings for a brief time, find their way into the charity box.
Montreal is the headquarters in America of the well-known teaching order of the Christian Brothers. The Jesuits have St. Mary"s College; and the Convent of the Sacred Heart and Hochelaga Convent, the Asylum of the Sisters of Providence and the Convent of the Good Shepherd are also prominent. The chief Protestant educational inst.i.tution is McGill University, with a thousand students and seventy-five instructors, originally founded in 1821, through a bequest of $150,000, by James McGill, a native of Glasgow, who was one of the early successful merchants of Montreal. It has since been richly endowed, its properties being valued at over $1,000,000, and it has fine buildings and grounds near the mountain. Closely affiliated is the Presbyterian College of Montreal, devoted to the training of missionaries and clergymen, also provided with n.o.ble buildings. There is also a Wesleyan Theological College affiliated with McGill University. The peculiar religious conditions of Quebec Province have vested the educational management of the public schools in two Boards, one Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, separately governing each cla.s.s of schools, and working in harmony under the Provincial Superintendent of Education, each Board having an office in Montreal.
MONTREAL CHURCHES AND BUILDINGS.
The Place d"Armes, down in the old part of the city, where is the original Seminary of St. Sulpice, is surrounded by famous structures.
Here are the chief banks and insurance buildings and the head office of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The most noted of them is the Grecian-fronted Bank of Montreal, the largest financial inst.i.tution in Canada, and believed, with the Canadian Pacific management, who are closely connected, to be the most potential force in the Dominion.
Adjoining the old Seminary, and facing the square, is Montreal"s most famous church--Notre Dame--its lofty front rising into the twin spires that overlook all the country round. Its pews seat ten thousand, and when crowded it accommodates fifteen thousand people. In one of the towers hangs "Le Gros Bourdon," the largest bell in America, called Jean Baptiste, and weighing nearly fifteen tons. The church is mediaeval Gothic, built of cut limestone, the spires rising two hundred and twenty-seven feet, and containing ten bells, making a chime upon which, on great occasions, tunes are played. The interior, like all the French Catholic churches, is brilliantly decorated, for the religious development is the same as that of France in the seventeenth century, everything contributing to the intensity of the devotion and the elaborateness of decoration and paraphernalia of the service. At High Ma.s.s, when crowded by worshippers, the choir filled with robed ecclesiastics officiating in the stately ceremonial, the effect is imposing. The original church of Notre Dame was built in 1671, a long, low structure with a high pitched roof. It was pulled down in 1824 and replaced by the present church, which was five years building, and is one of the largest churches in America, two hundred and fifty-five feet long. We are told that the architect, James O"Donnell, who is buried in the crypt, was a Protestant, but during the work became so impressed by his religious surroundings that he was converted to a Roman Catholic. The church is never closed, and at any time one can enter, and with the silent worshippers kneel at the shrine in a solemn stillness, in sharp contrast with the activity of the business quarter without. This remarkable contrast deeply impressed the ascetic Th.o.r.eau, whose boast was that he never attended church. "I soon found my way to the Church of Notre Dame," he writes. "I saw that it was of great size and signified something. Coming from the hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed back the listed door of this church and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. It was a great cave in the midst of a city, and what were the altars and the tinsel but the sparkling stalact.i.tes into which you entered in a moment, and where the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays." When General Montgomery"s American army captured Montreal in 1775, the square in front of Notre Dame was his parade-ground, and thus it got the name of Place d"Armes.
The greatest church of Montreal is the new Cathedral of St. James, popularly known as St. Peter"s, as yet incomplete, designed to reproduce, on a scale of one-half the dimensions, the grand Basilica at Rome. It is three hundred and thirty-three feet long, the transepts two hundred and twenty-five feet wide, and the stone dome two hundred and fifty feet high, making it the largest church in Canada. Four huge stone piers, each thirty-six feet thick, and thirty-two Corinthian columns, support this grand dome. The outside walls, built of the universal gray limestone, are ma.s.sive but rough, and the roof, on account of the heavy snows, is sloping, but otherwise it reproduces all the special features of St. Peter"s at Rome, including the portico, to be surmounted by colossal statues of the Apostles. The interior is being decorated with brilliant paintings representing scenes in the life of St. James. It is located on Dominion Square, and the Bishop"s Palace adjoins it. One of the remarkable churches, though small, is Notre Dame de Lourdes, built and adorned with the single idea of expressing in visible form the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, with the appearance of the Virgin to the maiden in the grotto at Lourdes. It is superbly decorated, and is the only church of the kind in America, being well described as "like an illuminated Missal, which to a Protestant has interest as a work of art, and to a Catholic has the superadded interest of a work of devotion." Adjoining the Jesuit St. Mary"s College is their solid stone Church of the Gesu, its lofty nave bounded by rich columns, and with the long transepts adorned by fine frescoes, some giving representations of scenes in Jesuit history and martyrdom. The great Episcopal Cathedral of Christ Church, a Latin cross in Early English architecture, reproduces the Salisbury Cathedral of England, with a spire two hundred and twenty-four feet high. There are also many other fine Protestant churches; and when it is realized that Montreal has a church for about every two thousand inhabitants, the care for its religious welfare will be realized. The Royal Victoria Hospital, a gift to the city in honor of the Queen"s Jubilee, cost $1,000,000.
The largest public square in the city is the Champ de Mars, formerly a parade-ground, adjoining which are two n.o.ble public buildings, the handsome Court-house, three hundred feet long, and the adjacent Hotel de Ville, nearly five hundred feet long. The Victoria Skating Rink, the largest in the world, is the most noted amus.e.m.e.nt structure. The city is noted for athletic sports, and toboggan slides abound, some of enormous length, down the mountain slopes. The Montreal Bonsecours Market is famed everywhere, and presents an imposing Doric front nearly five hundred feet long upon the river bank, surmounted by a domed tower. Here gather in force the French Canadian peasantry, known as the _habitans_, to sell their produce and wares, and it gives a quaint exhibition of old-time French customs. The ancient Church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours is alongside, originally founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1673 for the reception of a miraculous statue of the Virgin, entrusted to her by one of the a.s.sociates of the Society founding Montreal, Baron de Faucamp. The church was burnt and then rebuilt in 1771, and is a quaint structure of a style rarely seen outside of Normandy, having shops built up against it after the fashion common in old European towns. Thus does this famous city combine the methods and styles of the Middle Ages with the manners and enterprises of to-day. It is an impressive fact that notwithstanding the prodigious religious development, all the denominations get on without friction. There is an underlying spirit of toleration, and it is recorded that after the British conquest of Canada the Protestants who came into Montreal occupied one of the Catholic churches for worship, a.s.sembling after the Catholic morning ma.s.s; and that for twenty years after 1766 the Church of England people occupied the Catholic church of the Recollets every Sunday afternoon. The Presbyterians are said to have also used the same church prior to 1792, and then having removed into a church of their own, they presented the priests of the Recollet church a gift of candles for the high altar and of wine for the ma.s.s as a token of good will and their thanks for the gratuitous use of the church. Then the churches were few, but now all denominations have their own, and numerously.
MONTREAL SURROUNDINGS.
The suburbs are attractive, and gradually dissolve into the gardens and farms of the French husbandmen, living in comfortable houses with steep roofs, fronted by and sometimes almost embedded in foliage and flowers. Occasionally an ancient windmill is perched on a hill, stretching out its broad gyrating sails, as in old Normandy. There are frequent villages along the St. Lawrence, each cl.u.s.tered around its church. At Caughnawaga, already referred to, there is an extensive church with a tall and shining white tin-covered spire, and in a rather sorry-looking group of houses around it live the few who are left of the descendants of the once warlike and powerful Mohawks, known as the "praying Indians," here long ago gathered by the zealous missionary priests of St. Sulpice. At Lachine, spreading opposite on the western sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence for several miles, is a popular place of suburban residence, with rows of pleasant villas lining the banks of Lake St. Louis. Over beyond this lake comes in the main channel of Ottawa River, with the rapids of St. Anne flowing down from another inland sea made by its prolonged enlargement, the "Lake of the Two Mountains." A ca.n.a.l flanks these rapids, and the village of St.
Anne has grown around its ancient church, which is deeply reverenced by the Canadian boatmen and voyageurs on these waters as their special shrine, for in the early days all the fur-trading with the great Canadian northwest was by canoes and bateaux on the Ottawa and Lake Nip.i.s.sing, and thence by portage to Lake Huron. Here came many years ago, on a bateau down the St. Lawrence, the minstrel bard, Tom Moore, and inspired by the locality, he composed in a cottage, still pointed out, his noted "Canadian Boat Song":
"Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on sh.o.r.e look dim, We"ll sing at St. Anne"s our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row; the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and the daylight"s past.
"Ottawa"s tide! this trembling moon Shall see us float o"er thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers: O, grant us cool heavens, and favoring airs!
Blow, breezes, blow; the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and the daylight"s past."
On the northern sh.o.r.e of the "Lake of the Two Mountains," with Oka village nestling at the base, where an Indian colony live, are the two mountains from which the lake is named. One, surmounted by a cross, is Mount Calvary, having various religious shrines on its summit, and seven chapels on the road up, representing the seven stations of the cross. Here is also a monastery of the French "farmer Monks," the Trappists, who cultivate a large surface. They live a secluded life under ascetic rules, are not allowed to talk to each other, and only men enter the monastery, all women being stopped at the threshold.
They rise at two o"clock in the morning, take breakfast soon afterwards in absolute silence, this being the only meal of the day, and retire to rest immediately after prayers at sunset. They devote twelve hours daily to devotions, and labor in the fields the remainder of the waking time. Their food is a scant allowance of water and vegetables. They sleep on a board with a straw pillow, and never undress, even in sickness. They are a branch of the Cistercians, and their abode overlooks the placid lake, with Montreal spreading beyond.
But the city"s finest suburban possession is its Mountain, the summit being a pleasant park, and the slopes covered with luxuriant foliage, which in the autumn becomes a blazing ma.s.s of resplendent beauty when the frosts turn the leaves. From the top the view is of unrivalled magnificence.
THE GRAND RIVER.
The Ottawa River is the most important tributary of the St. Lawrence, over seven hundred miles long, and draining a basin of one hundred thousand square miles, the most productive pine-timber region existing. It was the "Grand River" of the early French-Canadian voyageurs, and the name of Ottawa, changed considerably from the original form, comes from the Indian tribe and means "the traders." It has a circuitous course; rising in Western Quebec province, it flows northwest and then west for three hundred miles to Lake Temiscamingue, on the border of Ontario province; then it turns and flows back southeastward, making the boundary between the provinces for four hundred miles, until it falls into the St. Lawrence, the vast volume of its dark waters pressing the latter"s blue current against the farther sh.o.r.e. It is a romantic river, filled with rapids and cascades, at times broadening into lakes, and again contracted into a torrent barely fifty yards wide, where the waters are precipitated over the rocks in wild splendor. For twenty-five miles above its mouth it broadens into the "Lake of the Two Mountains," from one to six miles wide. Above the city of Ottawa there are rapids terminating in the famous Chaudiere Falls, where the waters plunge down forty feet, and part are said to disappear through an underground pa.s.sage of unknown outlet. It has an enormous lumber trade, and by a ca.n.a.l system, avoiding the rapids, has been made navigable for two hundred and fifty miles. The Rideau River enters from the south at Ottawa, making the route by which the Rideau Ca.n.a.l goes over to Lake Ontario at Kingston. The Gatineau River also flows in at Ottawa, being of great volume, over four hundred miles long, and a prolific timber producer. In the villages around Montreal all the saints in the calendar are named, so that, starting on an exploration of Ottawa River, the route goes by St. Martin, St. Jean, St. Rose, St. Therese, St. Jerome, St. Lin, St. Eustache, St. Augustine, St. Scholastique, St. Hermes, St. Phillippe, and many more. But when the great religious city is left behind the saints cease to appear, and everything in the Ottawa valley above is generally otherwise named. This valley is usually a broad and level intervale, with only an occasional rocky b.u.t.tress pressing upon the river. At one of these pa.s.ses, in 1660, a handful of valiant men held the stockade at Carillon, the foot of Long Sault rapids, sacrificing their lives to save the early colony from the Indians, the place being known as the "French Canadian Thermopylae." The full force of the Iroquois warriors were in arms up the Ottawa, over a thousand of them, threatening to drive the French out of Montreal. Dollard des Ormeaux and sixteen companions took the sacrament in the little Montreal church, made their wills, and bound themselves by an oath neither to give nor take quarter. A few Algonquins joined them, and going up the river they hastily built a stockaded fort at this pa.s.s. Soon the Iroquois canoes came dancing down the rapids, and discovering the fort, they surrounded and attacked it, but were repulsed day after day, until every one of the brave garrison had been killed, when the Iroquois had lost so many of their own warriors that they tired of the fighting, and avoiding Montreal, returned southward to their own country. Some fugitive Indians told the heroic story, which George Murray has woven into his ballad: