The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-07 00:00:00

make the picture quite complete. There is literally
no end to the absurdities written about him here,
some arising from ignorance, some—as that about
the left hand—from sheer ill-nature and love of
snarling. Whatever is wanted to complete the
picture of his private life is imagined, and if rather
strongly seasoned, has an immense run till some
other more startling revelation supersedes it. In
England the journalist that intruded upon private
life, and, above all, the private life of Royalty,
would not be a journalist long.
There were no illuminations on Monday night,
save the awful flashes of lightning which poured
down at quick intervals and continued through part
of Tuesday the 21st. This was the day fixed for the
levee, and just as the Prince entered the town the
weather cleared up fine and warm, too warm per-
haps, for, though it failed to dry the streets (what
could ?), it converted their slush into a paste as
tenacious as birdlime, and not half as clean. The
presentations took place in a chamber of the Upper
House, which had been richly and tastefully deco-
rated for the occasion, and which, with its walls
draped with crimson cloth and hung with a fine
series of portraits, had a very regal and imposing
look.

The Ministers of the Canadian Government were
in uniform, and there was a very large and brilliant
staff of naval and military officers, and all previous
levees were therefore quite eclipsed by this. The
Speakers of the Upper and Lower. House had the
honour of receiving knighthood from his Royal
Highness, the first time that the Prince has ever
conferred that distinction on any one. Sir Nar-
cisse Belleau was the first created. There was some
doubt whether the Speaker of the Lower House
was to be so honoured, but it was soon removed,
when the Prince again took the sword of the Duke
of Newcastle, desired Mr. Smith to kneel, and.
laying it lightly twice across his shoulders, plain
Mr. Smith rose up Sir Henry. Before these
honorary rewards had been bestowed two addresses
—one from each branch of the Legislature—had
been read, first in English and then in French, and.
duly presented and responded to by his Royal
Highness, Another address was also presented.
from Bishop Mountain and the members of the
Anglican Church of Quebec, to which the Prince
likewise made a graceful and appropriate reply.
The levee over, a dejeneur took place, at which
most of the members of the Government and
Legislature were present with the Prince, and after
which the healths of the Queen; Prince Consort,
Prince, and Governor-General were given, and cor-
dially acknowledged. From the hot crush of these
scenes the Prince escaped at last on Tuesday, and.
drove to the Falls of Montmorenci, some eight miles
below Quebec, and situate between the picturesque
hills which form the left bank of the St. Lawrence.
The road to it is pretty enough ; not much in its
way, though sufficiently undulating to prove that it
must at one time have been richly picturesque,
before all the trees were utterly uprooted and de-
stroyed. Now it is a fine well-cultivated land, cleared
of even the semblance of a shrub, and closely dotted
here and there with white wooden houses, all of
which are tenanted by French Canadians, who pre-
serve their Gallic type, Gallic language, and, in too
many cases, Gallic antipathies, to this very day.
Like all such conservative settlers, in whatever
land, they are quiet, frugal, and industrious, sel-
dom meddling much in the political concerns of
the colony, though, when they do so, invariably
with their compatriots on all subjects.
The Falls of Montmorenci are said to be, after
those of Hamitt, in California, the highest in North
America. The river, rather a deep one, though
only some 100 feet across, comes brawling down a.
series of rocky chasms to the edge of a tremendous
cliff which opens on the St. Lawrence, and over
which the stream rushes in one grand heavy mass
down a sheer unbroken depth of nearly 300
feet. The character of the beautiful fall is gene-
rally thin and foamy—at a distance like a
huge avalanche of snow reposing softly among
the gaunt black rocks. Its appearance of
majestic repose, however, soons gets broken as the
visitor advances towards it, and the roar gets louder
and fiercer till you come out upon a little point
which overlooks its edge, and gaze upon a huge sheet
of water springing madly over, -white, boiling, and
angry, its, long shoots of spray plunging further and.
further down, till the whole is lost in piles of mist
below, soft, white, and irregular as a summer cloud.
When the Prince saw it it was at its grandest.
Unlike that lofty monarch of cascades, Niagara, to
the might and rush of which the melting of the
winter snows or the largest summer drouth neither
adds nor detracts, Montmorenci, and, indeed, all.
other falls, are visibly increased by much
wet weather. After the very heavy and un-
interrupted rain of the three previous days,
therefore, the fall was swollen to its utmost,
and came down the rapids bellowing with a
noise like thunder as its great final plunge, which
was to shut it ont for ever from the light of day,
grew more imminent. It was really a grand sight,
and one which is regarded almost with a regretful.
awe as the river, in all its fiercest energy of life
and power, makes its last leap, and, all torn and
dishevelled, with not a trace of the stately gran-
deur with which it left the cliffs above, but a mere
crowd of hurrying broken water, enters that un-
fathomable hole at its base, and is never seen again.
Strange as it may seem, of this tremendous body
of water, which pours down within a foot or so
of the St. Lawrence' not a drop is known to
enter the river which it rushes to meet. A little
narrow semicircular ledge of rock, not a foot high
apparently, surrounds the foot of the fall, separat-
ing it from the tidal mark of the great river.
Over this ledge, which marks the rim of a yawning
funnel-shaped hole, the baffled waters of the Mont-
morenci never pass, but sink at once without a sign,
and rush on no one knows whither. The hole has
never been fathomed, its course has never been
traced, and things that pass over Montmorenci are
never more seen. The impression is rather height-
ened by the gloomy luxuriance of the scenery
around. The black, dead-looking rocks and lofty
reared pine trees, the white gravestone-looking
towers of granite, which till two or three years back
supported a suspension bridge over the falls, when
it suddenly gave way, hurrying those upon it to
an instant and dreadful death, all add to the
mournful effect. At the foot of these falls, too,
General Wolfe made his most desperate and most
disastrous attempt upon Quebec. Here he suf-
fered a severe defeat from Montcalm—a defeat
which he so signally avenged within two months
afterwards by his capture of the Heights of Abra-
ham, and Quebec itself. Montmorenci roars and
plunges now without a change as fiercely as it did
on that disatrous day, yet the very name of the
battle is almost forgotten, or degenerated into a
local tradition, and the mounds of the redoubt
which Wolfe reared to cover his retreat and em-
barkation aotfiote
nharceurmioeures
carbut faintly trace. shapeless From ridges, 'which even the
Montmorenci the Prince proceeded some three miles
up the rocky banks of the stream to a place called
the Natural Steps—a little gem of Canadian scenery
which, for its size and peculiar character, is not to
be surpassed in any part of America. It is a wild,
place, where a series of rocks, as regular as
jut out on either side into the deep,
cloonloeslysal
steps,
narrow
Montmorenci. Their geolo-
gical formation, I have no doubt, is curious, and.
some learned theories have been broached as to the
rapids of the
cause of their being there at all, though few will
care to think or read of these when in that rich,
wild, quiet glen where the river, not yet brawling
angrily with upstart socks, flows on with quick,
silent dignity, as if it knew the massive steps as
friends since all creation, and recognised their
solemn granite masses as characteristic ornaments
of its own brown, decayed-looking waters. Higher
up the steps, still old, worn, and imposing, break
intoa
withkindof mournful irregularity, and loom about
in great gray pinnacles like the ruins of an old
castle,
gaps and rents in the tremendous walls
between, speaking rather of their strength than
weakness, Everything tells of age and quiet here,
and the woods, which almost close in the glen at
,
the top, give a dull, solemn repose to the whole, as
if the dark apertures between their trunks Were
Natural
painted
vaults, and the very leaves rustled gently of the
mysteries of nature. It is a pity that these exqui-
site scenes of Canadian beauty n
photographed, or printed,—are, in short, almost un-
known by name to the world in general. If the
Falls of Montmorenci and the
were in the United States, there would be pictures
of them everywhere, a finne hotel b their immediate
neighbourhood, and thousands going to visit them
annually. As it is, not 10 per cent. of those who
irre ne
Steps
drive to Montmorenci ever hear of the Natural
Steps at all.
In the evenn
g the Prince entertained a large
i
party at a banquet, and afterwards went to the
grand ball given
by the Mayor and citizees of
Quebec to his Royal Highness.
The latter fete_ was given in the Music-hall, a
large avid very lofty building sometimes used for
concerts, sometimes as a theatre, and once, after the
fire which destroyed the Parliament-house, as the
place of meeting for the Canadian Legislature. In
these
spite of vicissitudes of fortune, however, it
still remains a noble and well-decorated saloon,
and on the occasion of the ball it had, at great
expense, been entirely rehabilitated in fresh paint
and gilding in such a rich and tasteful style that
the recollections of the ball at Halifax, for
the first time since the tour commenced,
now suffered by comparison. Nothing is really
more astounding, when the time of the Prince's
stly in each place is considered, than the lavish ex-
penditure which seems to have been incurred every-
where to give him a fitting and splendid reception.
It is only when one drives about Quebec, and finds
in remote corners handsome arches which it was
never once expected ho would pass under, or even