aid the old Castilian
voyagers, when they saw no trace of gold mines or other wealth along
the coast. That's the story, at all events. But I hold to it that our
British John Cabot was the first who ever visited this continent, unless
there's truth in the old Scandinavian tales, which I don't believe.'

But the gallant officer's want of credence does not render it the less
a fact, that, about the year 1001, Biorn Heriolson, an Icelander, was
driven south from Greenland by tempestuous weather, and discovered
Labrador. Subsequently, a colony was established for trading purposes
on some part of the coast named Vinland; but after a few Icelanders
had made fortunes of the peltries, and many had perished among the
Esquimaux, all record of the settlement is blotted out, and Canada fades
from the world's map till restored by the exploration of the Cabots and
Jacques Cartier. The two former examined the seaboard, and the latter
first entered the grand estuary of the St. Lawrence, which he named from
the saint's day of its discovery; and he also was the earliest white
man to gaze down from the mighty precipice of Quebec, and pronounce
the obscure Indian name which was hereafter to suggest a world-famed
capital. Then, the dwellings and navies of nations and generations yet
unborn were growing all around in hundreds of leagues of forest; a dread
magnificence of shade darkened the face of the earth, amid which the red
man reigned supreme. Now, as the passengers of the good brig Ocean Queen
gazed upon it three centuries subsequently, the slow axe had chopped
away those forests of pine, and the land was smiling with homesteads,
and mapped out in fields of rich farm produce: the encroachments of the
irresistible white man had metamorphosed the country, and almost blotted
out its olden masters. Robert Wynn began to realize the force of Hiram
Holt's patriotic declaration, 'It's the finest country in the world!'

'And the loveliest!' he could have added, without even a saving clause
for his own old Emerald Isle, when they passed the western point of the
high wooded island of Orleans, and came in view of the superb Falls of
Montmorenci; two hundred and fifty feet of sheer precipice, leaped by a
broad full torrent, eager to reach the great river flowing beyond, and
which seemed placidly to await the turbulent onset. As Robert gazed, the
fascination of a great waterfall came over him like a spell. Who has not
felt this beside Lodore, or Foyer