the mechanism of the gate since I came in, and have made a
discovery which dislodges my savant from his pinnacle; namely,
that the only fastening on the gate is a huge wooden latch,
which not one of us had sense enough to lift; but then who
thinks of taking a fort by assault and battery on the latch?
Halicarnassus hit upon it by mere accident, and I therefore
remorselessly expose him. Then we saunter about the place,
and, seeing a woman eying us suspiciously from an elevated
window, we show the white feather and ask her if we may come
in, which, seeing we have been in for some ten minutes, we
undoubtedly may; and then we mount the ramparts and peer into
Labrador and Hudson's Bay and the North Pole, and, turning to
a softer sky, gaze from a "foreign clime" upon our own dear
land, home of freedom, hope of the nations, eye-sore of the
Devil, rent by one set of his minions, and ridiculed by
another, but coming out of her furnace-fires, if God please
and man will, heartier and holier, because freer and truer,
than ever before. O my country, beautiful and beloved, my
hope, my desire, my joy, and my crown of rejoicing, immeasurably
dearer in the agony of your bloody sweat than in the high noon
of your proud prosperity! standing for the first time beyond
your borders, and looking upon you from afar, now and forevermore
out of a full heart I breathe to you benedictions.



PART IV.

Down the St. Lawrence in a steamer, up the St. Lawrence on the
maps, we sail through another day full of eager interest.