QUEBEC AND MONTREAL.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, 26 March 1842, Page 12

QUEBEC AND MONTREAL.

The signs of progression and of stationary habits are nowhere more strikingly conspicuous than at Quebec and Montreal ; and nowhere, perhaps, are domestic contrasts of almost every kind exhibited in more varied shapes. Side by side are seen the modern commercial store and the ancient secluded convent. Here appears the harbour, enlivened by an array of British shipping ; there, the lingering remnants of primitive inactive life. Jostling each other on the narrow causeway,- or grouped in the wider square or market-place, are the red-coated soldier of England and the cowled priest of France ; the antiquated habitant of the country in his homespun suit of grey, and the spruce denizen of the town attired in the latest European fashion; the swarthy aborigine of the coil enveloped in his blanket, with his squaw carrying her papoose at her back (the little creature not always exhibiting in lineament a purity of race), and the British artisan or labourer in his peculiar garb ; while, to crown the whole, thealternate sound of two conflicting languages breaking on your ear at every step you take, leaves you momentarily undecided as to whether you be not in some provincial town of France or England; the first impression, moreover, being strengthened by the general appearance of the streets and houses, and the last by th* British designation of many of the thoroughfares, and the preponderance of British names along their line of frontage. — Preston' 1 f Three Years in Canada.