His batteries, too, played across the chasm of
Montmorenci upon the left wing of the French army with an effect
extremely annoying.
The position of the hostile forces was a remarkable one. They were
separated by the vast gorge that opens upon the St. Lawrence; an
amphitheatre of lofty precipices, their brows crested with forests, and
their steep brown sides scantily feathered with stunted birch and fir.
Into this abyss leaps the Montmorenci with one headlong plunge of nearly
two hundred and fifty feet, a living column of snowy white, with its
spray, its foam, its mists, and its rainbows; then spreads itself in
broad thin sheets over a floor of rock and gravel, and creeps tamely to
the St. Lawrence. It was but a gunshot across the gulf, and the
sentinels on each side watched each other over the roar and turmoil of
the cataract. Captain Knox, coming one day from Point Levi to receive
orders from Wolfe, improved a spare hour to visit this marvel of nature.
"I had very nigh paid dear for my inquisitiveness; for while I stood on
the eminence I was hastily called to by one of our sentinels, when,
throwing my eyes about, I saw a Frenchman creeping under the eastern
extremity of their breastwork to fire at me. This obliged me to retire
as fast as I could out of his reach, and, making up to the sentry to
thank him for his attention, he told me the fellow had snapped his piece
twice, and the second time it flashed in the pan at the instant I turned
away from the Fall.
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