the ship was out of provisions, and I was condemned to undergo a rigid fast until the return of the boat, when the captain had promised a supply of fresh butter and bread.  The vessel had been nine weeks at sea; the poor steerage passengers for the two last weeks had been out of food, and the captain had been obliged to feed them from the ship’s stores.  The promised bread was to be obtained from a small steam-boat, which plied daily between Quebec and the island, transporting convalescent emigrants and their goods in her upward trip, and provisions for the sick on her return.

How I reckoned on once more tasting bread and butter!  The very thought of the treat in store served to sharpen my appetite, and render the long fast more irksome.  I could now fully realise all Mrs. Bowdich’s longings for English bread and butter, after her three years’ travel through the burning African deserts, with her talented husband.

“When we arrived at the hotel at Plymouth,” said she, “and were asked what refreshment we chose—­’Tea, and home-made bread and butter,’ was my instant reply.  ’Brown bread, if you please, and plenty of it.’  I never enjoyed any luxury like it.  I was positively ashamed of asking the waiter to refill the plate.  After the execrable messes, and the hard ship-biscuit, imagine the luxury of a good slice of English bread and butter!”

At home, I laughed heartily at the lively energy with which that charming woman of genius related this little incident in her eventful history—­but off Grosse Isle, I realised it all.

As the sun rose above the horizon, all these matter-of-fact circumstances were gradually forgotten, and merged in the surpassing grandeur of the scene that rose majestically before me.  The previous day had been dark and stormy, and a heavy fog had concealed the mountain chain, which forms the stupendous background to this sublime view, entirely from our sight.  As the clouds rolled away from their grey, bald brows, and cast into denser shadow the vast forest belt that girdled them round, they loomed out like mighty giants—­Titans of the earth, in all their rugged and awful beauty—­a thrill of wonder and delight pervaded my mind.  The spectacle floated dimly on my sight—­my eyes were blinded with tears—­blinded with the excess of beauty.  I turned to the right and to the left, I looked up and down the glorious river; never had I beheld so many striking objects blended into one mighty whole!  Nature had lavished all her noblest features in producing that enchanting scene.

The rocky isle in front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with the telegraph—­the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley groups—­added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene.  Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and fro, conveying