me_."

The servants and retainers, imitating their lords, held high revel in
the vaulted kitchens; while dishes and confections, savoury and
delicious, came from the curious fireplace and ovens recently discovered
in the vaults. These ancient kitchen offices, built to resist a siege,
are exceedingly interesting in the light of our culinary arrangements of
to-day. They were so constructed that if the buildings above, with their
massive masonry, were destroyed, they would afford safe and comfortable
refuge. The roof is arched, and, like the walls, is several feet thick,
of solid stone, lighted by heavily barred windows, with strong iron
shutters. In clearing out the walled-up and long-forgotten ovens, there
were found bits of broken crockery, pipe-stems and the ashes of fires,
gone out many, many long years ago. As indicated by an early map of the
city, the position of the original well was located; in which, when it
is cleaned out, it is intended to hang an old oaken bucket and drinking
cups as nearly as possible as they originally were.

[Illustration: Ancient kitchen and fireplace of the Chateau de Ramezay.

COPYRIGHT.]

Some time after the death of de Ramezay, which occurred in the city of
Quebec in 1724, these noble halls fell into the possession of the
fur-traders of Canada, and many a time these underground cellars were
stored with the rich skins of the mink, silver fox, marten, sable and
ermine for the markets of Europe and for royalty itself. They were
brought in by the hunters and trappers over the boundless domains of the
fur companies, and by the Indian tribes friendly to the peltrie trade.
As these hardy, bronzed men sat around the hearth, while the juicy
haunch of venison roasted on the spit by the blazing logs, relating
blood-curdling tales and hairbreadth escapes, they were a necessary
phase of times long passed away, but which will always have a
picturesqueness especially their own.

Instead of the white man's influencing the savage towards civilized
customs, it was often found, as one writer has said, that hundreds of
white men were barbarized on this continent for each single savage that
was civilized. Many of the former identified themselves by marriage and
mode of life with the Indians, developed their traits of hardihood and
acquired their knowledge of woodcraft and skill in navigating the
streams. In pursuit of the fur-bearing animals in their native haunts,
they shot the raging rapids, venture