CHAPTER II

THE NORTH SHORE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE SAGUENAY

Leaving Ottawa at 1.00 a.m. Wednesday, we arrived in Montreal three hours later. Revs. Chas. Cushing and H. W. Burnett welcomed us, and after breakfast at the Mount Royal Hotel, we went to Knox Crescent Church, where kind church folk greeted us and took us for a three hours’ drive through the city and its environs.

With a population of nearly one million people, Mont- real is the largest city in Canada, and the sixth largest in North'America. It is the third largest French city in the world, and by reason of its large French element, has been called the Paris of America. It is the chief financial, industrial and transportation centre of the Dominion; summer terminus of trans—Atlantic passenger and freight

traffic; headquarters'of the world’s two largest transpor— tation systems,-—-the Canadian Pacific and Canadian

National Railways. Thus Montreal has become a Mecca for tourists and convention gatherings, for nowhere in North America can be found such charm, such romance and such a strange mixture of the old and the new. The combination of English-speaking and French-speaking citizens, together with an alloy of other races, gives it the spirit of cosmopolitanism, that makes it distinctive among the cities of the world.

When away back in 1535, Montreal was visited by Jacques Cartier, the site of the present city was an Indian village-Hochelaga. Under Maisonneuve in 1642, it for- mally passed into French hands. In 1672 streets were first laid out, and named, and in 1734 a post road was Opened between Montreal and Quebec. In 1760 General

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