Atala by vicomte de François-René Chateaubriand

“France formerly possessed in North America a vast empire, extending from Labrador to the Floridas, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the most distant lakes of Upper Canada.
“Four great rivers, deriving their sources from the same mountains, divided these immense regions: the river St. Lawrence, which is lost to the east in the gulf of that name; the Western River, whose waters flow on to seas unknown; the river Bourbon, which runs from south to north into Hudson’s Bay; and the Mississippi, whose waters fall from north to south into the Gulf of Mexico.” -an excerpt