ectual,
though I suffered much from sickness and headache for many hours. The
debility and low fever that took place of the cholera obliged me to keep
my bed some days. During the two first my doctor visited me four times a
day; he was very kind, and, on hearing that I was the wife of a British
officer emigrating to the Upper Province, he seemed more than ever
interested in my recovery, evincing a sympathy for us that was very
grateful to our feelings. After a weary confinement of several days, I
was at last pronounced in a sufficiently convalescent state to begin my
journey, though still so weak that I was scarcely able to support
myself.
The sun had not yet risen when the stage that was to take us to Lachine,
the first nine miles of our route, drove up to the door, and we gladly
bade farewell to a place in which our hours of anxiety had been many,
and those of pleasure few. We had, however, experienced a great deal of
kindness from those around us, and, though perfect strangers, had tasted
some of the hospitality for which this city has often been celebrated. I
omitted, in my former letter, telling you how we formed an acquaintance
with a highly respectable merchant in this place, who afforded us a
great deal of useful information, and introduced us to his wife, a very
elegant and accomplished young woman. During our short acquaintance, we
passed some pleasant hours at their house, much to our satisfaction.
I enjoyed the fresh breeze from the river along the banks of which our
road lay. It was a fine sight to see the unclouded sun rising from
behind the distant chain of mountains. Below us lay the rapids in their
perturbed state, and there was the island of St. Anne's, bringing to our
minds Moore's Canadian boat song: "We'll sing at Saint Anne's our
parting hymn."
The bank of the St. Laurence, along which our road lay, is higher here
than at Montreal, and clothed with brushwood on the summit, occasionally
broken with narrow gulleys. The soil, as near as I could see, was sandy
or light loam. I noticed the wild vine for the first time twining among
the saplings. There were raspberry bushes, too, and a profusion of that
tall yellow flower we call Aaron's golden rod, a _solidago_, and the
white love-everlasting, the same that the chaplets are made of by the
French and Swiss girls to adorn the tombs of their friends, and which
they call _immortelle_; the Americans call it life-everlasting; also a
tall purple-spiked v
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