[* This has since been arched over.  A market has been erected above it.]

I was greatly disappointed in my first acquaintance with the interior of Montreal; a place of which travellers had said so much.  I could compare it only to the fruits of the Dead sea, which are said to be fair and tempting to look upon, but yield only ashes and bitterness when tasted by the thirsty traveller**.

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[** The following description of Montreal is given by M’Gregor in his British America, vol. ii. p. 504:—­“Betwixt the royal mountain and the river, on a ridge of gentle elevation, stands the town.  Including the suburbs, it is more extensive than Quebec.  Both cities differ very greatly in appearance; the low banks of the St. Laurence at Montreal want the tremendous precipices frowning over them, and all that grand sublimity which characterizes Quebec.

“There are no wharfs at Montreal, and the ships and steamers lie quietly in pretty deep water, close to the clayey and generally filthy bank of the city.  The whole of the lower town is covered with gloomy-looking houses, having dark iron shutters; and although it may be a little cleaner than Quebec, it is still very dirty; and the streets are not only narrow and ill-paved, but the footpaths are interrupted by slanting cellar doors and other projections.”

“It is impossible (says Mr. Talbot, in his Five Years’ Residence) to walk the streets of Montreal on a Sunday or holiday, when the shops are closed, without receiving the most gloomy impressions; the whole city seems one vast prison;”—­alluding to the window-shutters and outer doors of iron, that have been adopted to counteract the effects of fire.]

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I noticed one peculiar feature in the buildings along the suburb facing the river—­that they were mostly furnished with broad wooden balconies from the lower to the upper story; in some instances they surrounded the houses on three sides, and seemed to form a sort of outer chamber.  Some of these balconies were ascended by flights of broad stairs from the outside.

I remember when a child dreaming of houses so constructed, and fancying them very delightful; and so I think they might be rendered, if shaded by climbing shrubs, and adorned with flowers, to represent a hanging-garden or sweet-scented bowery walk.  But nothing of this kind gladdened our eyes as we toiled along the hot streets.  Every house of public resort was crowded from the top to the bottom with emigrants of all ages, English, Irish, and Scotch.  The sounds of riotous merriment that burst from them seemed but ill-assorted with the haggard, careworn faces of many of the thoughtless revellers.

The contrast was only too apparent and too painful a subject to those that looked upon this show of outward gaiety and inward misery.

The cholera had made awful ravages, and its devastating effects were to be seen in the darkened dwellings and the mourning habiliments of all classes.  An expression of dejection and anxiety appeared in the faces of the few persons we encountered in our walk to the hotel, which plainly indicated the state of their minds.