LETTER 10.


Silleri, August 24.

I have been a month arrived, my dear, without having seen your
brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have
spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be,
but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold,
picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton
luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated
beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely;
the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods,
rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms and cottages, and
bounded by distant mountains which seem to scale the very Heavens.

The days are much hotter here than in England, but the heat is more
supportable from the breezes which always spring up about noon; and the
evenings are charming beyond expression. We have much thunder and
lightening, but very few instances of their being fatal: the thunder is
more magnificent and aweful than in Europe, and the lightening brighter
and more beautiful; I have even seen it of a clear pale purple,
resembling the gay tints of the morning.

The verdure is equal to that of England, and in the evening acquires
an unspeakable beauty from the lucid splendor of the fire-flies
sparkling like a thousand little stars on the trees and on the grass.

There are two very noble falls of water near Quebec, la Chaudiere