Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/334

 cruel massacre committed by the Indians under the French General Montcalm, in 1757.[168]

The Lake St. Peter's is another expansion of the river, about twenty miles long and fifteen broad. The great lakes in the upper country, and the smaller ones in the course of the St. Lawrence, have the effect of equalizing the stream, and prevent {302} inundations, which are very injurious to the neighbourhood of most large rivers.

In the afternoon, the vessel was anchored in consequence of a contrary wind, which was accompanied with a fall of snow, the first that had occurred during the season. The town Trois Rivieres, (Three Rivers,) then in our sight, is a large place, and is the seat of justice for one of the three districts of Lower Canada. Most of the inhabitants here, as in the other parts of the lower province, are Canadian French. The houses are covered with tinned iron.

On both sides of the river, a row of farm houses, placed at very short intervals, stretches along almost without interruption. These houses are white-washed, and have throughout a degree of similarity in size and appearance which I have not observed in any other part except the banks of the St. Lawrence. These houses are white-washed, and have each a barn and other inferior houses attached. As the grain is housed, and the barns seem to be of no great dimensions, it is a proof that the crops are certainly small. In viewing these ranges of farming establishments obliquely, the whole has the aspect of a continued village on both sides, with churches at very