p here." It certainly
did suggest something apocryphal or antemundane,--a segment of the moon
or of a cleft asteroid, matter dead or wrecked. The world-builders must
have had their foundry up in this neighborhood, and the bed of this
river was doubtless the channel through which the molten granite
flowed. Some mischief-loving god has let in the sea while things were
yet red-hot, and there has been a time here. But the channel still
seems filled with water from the mid-Atlantic, cold and blue-black, and
in places between seven and eight thousand feet deep (one and a half
miles). In fact, the enormous depth of the Saguenay is one of the
wonders of physical geography. It is as great a marvel in its way as
Niagara.

The ascent of the river is made by night, and the traveler finds
himself in Ha-ha Bay in the morning. The steamer lies here several
hours before starting on her return trip, and takes in large quantities
of white birch wood, as she does also at Tadousac. The chief product of
the country seemed to be huckleberries, of which large quantities are
shipped to Quebec in rude board boxes holding about a peck each. Little
girls came aboard or lingered about the landing with cornucopias of
birch-bark filled with red raspberries; five cents for about half a
pint was the usual price. The village of St. Alphonse, where the
steamer tarries, is a cluster of small, humble dwellings dominated,
like all Canadian villages, by an immense church. Usually the church
will hold all the houses in the village; pile them all up and they
would hardly equal it in size; it is the one conspicuous object, and is
seen afar; and on the various lines of travel one sees many more
priests than laymen. They appear to be about the only class that stir
about and have a good time. Many of the houses were covered with
birch-bark,--the canoe birch,--held to its place by perpendicular
strips of board or split poles.

A man with a horse and a buckboard persuaded us to give him twenty-five
cents each to take us two miles up the St. Alphonse River to see the
salmon jump. There is a high saw-mill dam there which every salmon in
his upward journey tries his hand at leaping. A raceway has been
constructed around the dam for their benefit, which it seems they do
not use till they have repeatedly tried to scale the dam. The day
before our visit three dead fish were found in the pool below, killed
by too much jumping. Those we saw had the jump about all taken o