Peace being established with the Basques, and the wounded Pontgrave
busied, as far as might be, in transferring to the hold of his ship the
rich lading of the Indian canoes, Champlain spread his sails, and again
held his course up the St. Lawrence. Far to the south, in sun and
shadow, slumbered the woody mountains whence fell the countless springs
of the St. John, behind tenantless shores, now white with glimmering
villages,--La Chenaic, Granville, Kamouraska, St. Roche, St. Jean,
Vincelot, Berthier. But on the north the jealous wilderness still
asserts its sway, crowding to the river's verge its walls, domes, and
towers of granite; and, to this hour, its solitude is scarcely broken.
Above the point of the Island of Orleans, a constriction of the vast
channel narrows it to less than a mile, with the green heights of Point
Levi on one side, and on the other the cliffs of Quebec. Here, a small
stream, the St. Charles, enters the St. Lawrence, and in the angle
betwixt them rises the promontory on two sides a natural fortress.
Between the cliffs and the river lay a strand covered with walnuts and
other trees. From this strand, by a rough passage gullied downward from
the place where Prescott Gate now guards the way, one might climb the
height to the broken plateau above, now burdened with its ponderous load
of churches, convents, dwellings, ramparts, and batteries.
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