They quarrelled, too; three
fourths of their number seceded, took to their canoes in dudgeon, and
paddled towards their homes, while the rest pursued their course up the
broad and placid stream.
Walls of verdure stretched on left and right. Now, aloft in the lonely
air rose the cliffs of Belceil, and now, before them, framed in circling
forests, the Basin of Chambly spread its tranquil mirror, glittering in
the sun. The shallop outsailed the canoes. Champlain, leaving his allies
behind, crossed the basin and tried to pursue his course; but, as he
listened in the stillness, the unwelcome noise of rapids reached his
ear, and, by glimpses through the dark foliage of the Islets of St. John
he could see the gleam of snowy foam and the flash of hurrying waters.
Leaving the boat by the shore in charge of four men, he went with
Marais, La Routte, and five others, to explore the wild before him. They
pushed their way through the damps and shadows of the wood, through
thickets and tangled vines, over mossy rocks and mouldering logs. Still
the hoarse surging of the rapids followed them; and when, parting the
screen of foliage, they looked out upon the river, they saw it thick set
with rocks where, plunging over ledges, gurgling under drift-logs,
darting along clefts, and boiling in chasms, the angry waters filled the
solitude with monotonous ravings.
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