The voyage was uneventful. We can picture the
startled gaze of the Canadian peasants as they saw the stately
array, many miles long, pass up the St. Lawrence. On the 26th of
June, Wolfe and Saunders were in the basin before Quebec and the
great siege had begun which was to mark one of the turning-points
in history.
Nature had furnished a noble setting for the drama now to be
enacted. Quebec stands on a bold semicircular rock on the north
shore of the St. Lawrence. At the foot of the rock sweeps the
mighty river, here at the least breadth in its whole course, but
still a flood nearly a mile wide, deep and strong. Its currents
change ceaselessly with the ebb and flow of the tide which rises
a dozen feet, though the open sea is eight hundred miles away.
Behind the rock of Quebec the small stream of the St. Charles
furnishes a protection on the landward side. Below the fortress,
the great river expands into a broad basin with the outflow
divided by the Island of Orleans. In every direction there are
cliffs and precipices and rising ground. From the north shore of
the great basin the land slopes gradually into a remote blue of
wooded mountains.
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