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Title: The Mariner of St Malo:
   A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier
   [Vol. 2 of "The Chronicles of Canada"]
Author: Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
Cartographer: White, James (1863-1928)
Illustrator: Hamel, Thophile (1817-1870)
Illustrator: Jefferys, Charles William (1869-1951)
Illustrator: Morris, Andrew (fl. 1848-1850)
Illustrator: Riss, Franois (1804-1886)
Date of first publication: 1914
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Company, 1914
Date first posted: 6 September 2008
Date last updated: 6 September 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #168

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




Transcriber's Note

The portrait of Cartier in Chapter 1 is described as
being "From the Saint Malo portrait".  The portrait
in question was commissioned in 1839 from
Franois Riss, but was later destroyed in a fire.
The phrase "From the..." suggests that the illustration
is not the original portrait, but a copy of the
picture executed by the well known Canadian
painter Thophile Hamel.




[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA, 1535

From a colour-drawing by C. W. Jefferys.]




THE MARINER
OF ST MALO.

A Chronicle of the Voyages
of Jacques Cartier


BY

STEPHEN LEACOCK


[Illustration]


TORONTO
GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY
1914


_Copyright in all Countries subscribing to
the Berne Convention_


                              CONTENTS


                                                        Page

   I. EARLY LIFE                                           1

  II. THE FIRST VOYAGE--NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR         12

 III. THE FIRST VOYAGE--THE GULF OF ST LAWRENCE           25

  IV. THE SECOND VOYAGE--THE ST LAWRENCE                  41

   V. THE SECOND VOYAGE--STADACONA                        53

  VI. THE SECOND VOYAGE--HOCHELAGA                        67

 VII. THE SECOND VOYAGE--WINTER AT STADACONA              79

VIII. THE THIRD VOYAGE                                    93

  IX. THE CLOSE OF CARTIER'S CAREER                      105

      ITINERARY OF CARTIER'S VOYAGES                     113

      BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE                               121

      INDEX                                              123


                              ILLUSTRATIONS


JACQUES CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA, 1535            _Frontispiece_

From a colour-drawing by C. W. Jefferys.

JACQUES CARTIER                              _Facing page_ 2

From the St Malo portrait.

JACQUES CARTIER                                       "    4

From the medallion portrait in the National
Library at Paris.

MAP OF CARTIER'S VOYAGES                              "   16

Prepared by James White, F.R.G.S.

THE 'GRANDE HERMINE,' 'PETITE HERMINE,'
AND 'EMERILLON' IN THE ST LAWRENCE, 1535              "   54

CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA                                  "   70

From a painting by Andrew Morris.

THE FINAL CEREMONY AT QUEBEC, MAY 3, 1536             "   90

From an old engraving.

CARTIER'S MANOR HOUSE AT LIMOILOU, NEAR ST MALO       "  110

From Baxter's 'Memoir of Jacques Cartier.'




CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE


IN the town hall of the seaport of St Malo there hangs a portrait of
Jacques Cartier, the great sea-captain of that place, whose name is
associated for all time with the proud title of 'Discoverer of Canada.'
The picture is that of a bearded man in the prime of life, standing on
the deck of a ship, his bent elbow resting upon the gunwale, his chin
supported by his hand, while his eyes gaze outward upon the western
ocean as if seeking to penetrate its mysteries. The face is firm and
strong, with tight-set jaw, prominent brow, and the full, inquiring eye
of the man accustomed both to think and to act. The costume marks the
sea-captain of four centuries ago. A thick cloak, gathered by a belt at
the waist, enwraps the stalwart figure. On his head is the tufted Breton
cap familiar in the pictures of the days of the great navigators. At the
waist, on the left side, hangs a sword, and, on the right, close to the
belt, the dirk or poniard of the period.

How like or unlike the features of Cartier this picture in the town hall
may be, we have no means of telling. Painted probably in 1839, it has
hung there for more than seventy years, and the record of the earlier
prints or drawings from which its artist drew his inspiration no longer
survives. We know, indeed, that an ancient map of the eastern coast of
America, made some ten years after the first of Cartier's voyages, has
pictured upon it a group of figures that represent the landing of the
navigator and his followers among the Indians of Gasp. It was the
fashion of the time to attempt by such decorations to make maps
vivid. Demons, deities, mythological figures and naked savages
disported themselves along the borders of the maps and helped to
decorate unexplored spaces of earth and ocean. Of this sort is the
illustration on the map in question. But it is generally agreed that
we have no right to identify Cartier with any of the figures in the
scene, although the group as a whole undoubtedly typifies his landing
upon the seacoast of Canada.

[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER

From the St Malo Portrait]

There is rumour, also, that the National Library at Paris contains an
old print of Cartier, who appears therein as a bearded man passing
from the prime of life to its decline. The head is slightly bowed with
the weight of years, and the face is wanting in that suggestion of
unconquerable will which is the dominating feature of the portrait of St
Malo. This is the picture that appears in the form of a medallion, or
ring-shaped illustration, in more than one of the modern works upon the
great adventurer. But here again we have no proofs of identity, for we
know nothing of the origin of the portrait.

Curiously enough an accidental discovery of recent years seems to
confirm in some degree the genuineness of the St Malo portrait. There
stood until the autumn of 1908, in the French-Canadian fishing village
of Cap-des-Rosiers, near the mouth of the St Lawrence, a house of very
ancient date. Precisely how old it was no one could say, but it was said
to be the oldest existing habitation of the settlement. Ravaged by
perhaps two centuries of wind and weather, the old house afforded but
little shelter against the boisterous gales and the bitter cold of the
rude climate of the Gulf. Its owner decided to tear it down, and in
doing so he stumbled upon a startling discovery. He found a dummy window
that, generations before, had evidently been built over and concealed.
From the cavity thus disclosed he drew forth a large wooden medallion,
about twenty inches across, with the portrait of a man carved in relief.
Here again are the tufted hat, the bearded face, and the features of the
picture of St Malo. On the back of the wood, the deeply graven initials
J. C. seemed to prove that the image which had lain hidden for
generations behind the woodwork of the old Canadian house is indeed that
of the great discoverer. Beside the initials is carved the date 1704.
This wooden medallion would appear to have once figured as the stern
shield of some French vessel, wrecked probably upon the Gasp coast.
As it must have been made long before the St Malo portrait was
painted, the resemblance of the two faces perhaps indicates the
existence of some definite and genuine portrait of Jacques Cartier,
of which the record has been lost.

[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER

From the medallion portrait in the National Library at Paris]

It appears, therefore, that we have the right to be content with the
picture which hangs in the town hall of the seaport of St Malo. If it
does not show us Cartier as he was,--and we have no absolute proof in
the one or the other direction,--at least it shows us Cartier as he
might well have been, with precisely the face and bearing which the
hero-worshipper would read into the character of such a discoverer.

The port of St Malo, the birthplace and the home of Cartier, is situated
in the old province of Brittany, in the present department of
Ille-et-Vilaine. It is thus near the lower end of the English Channel.
To the north, about forty miles away, lies Jersey, the nearest of the
Channel Islands, while on the west surges the restless tide of the broad
Atlantic. The situation of the port has made it a nursery of hardy
seamen. The town stands upon a little promontory that juts out as a
peninsula into the ocean. The tide pours in and out of the harbour thus
formed, and rises within the harbour to a height of thirty or forty
feet. The rude gales of the western ocean spend themselves upon the
rocky shores of this Breton coast. Here for centuries has dwelt a race
of adventurous fishermen and navigators, whose daring is unsurpassed by
any other seafaring people in the world.

The history, or at least the legend, of the town goes back ten centuries
before the time of Cartier. It was founded, tradition tells us, by a
certain Aaron, a pilgrim who landed there with his disciples in the year
507 A.D., and sought shelter upon the sea-girt promontory which has
since borne the name of Aaron's Rock. Aaron founded a settlement. To the
same place came, about twenty years later, a bishop of Castle Gwent,
with a small band of followers. The leader of this flock was known as St
Malo, and he gave his name to the seaport.

But the religious character of the first settlement soon passed away. St
Malo became famous as the headquarters of the corsairs of the northern
coast. These had succeeded the Vikings of an earlier day, and they
showed a hardihood and a reckless daring equal to that of their
predecessors. Later on, in more settled times, the place fell into the
hands of the fishermen and traders of northern France. When hardy
sailors pushed out into the Atlantic ocean to reach the distant shores
of America, St Malo became a natural port and place of outfit for the
passage of the western sea.

Jacques Cartier first saw the light in the year 1491. The family has
been traced back to a grandfather who lived in the middle of the
fifteenth century. This Jean Cartier, or Quartier, who was born in St
Malo in 1428, took to wife in 1457 Guillemette Baudoin. Of the four sons
that she bore him, Jamet, the eldest, married Geseline Jansart, and of
their five children the second one, Jacques, rose to greatness as the
discoverer of Canada. There is little to chronicle that is worth while
of the later descendants of the original stock. Jacques Cartier himself
was married in 1519 to Marie Katherine des Granches. Her father was the
Chevalier Honor des Granches, high constable of St Malo. In all
probability he stood a few degrees higher in the social scale of the
period than such plain seafaring folk as the Cartier family. From this,
biographers have sought to prove that, early in life, young Jacques
Cartier must have made himself a notable person among his townsmen. But
the plain truth is that we know nothing of the circumstances that
preceded the marriage, and have only the record of 1519 on the civil
register of St Malo: 'The nuptial benediction was received by Jacques
Cartier, master-pilot of the port of Saincte-Malo, son of Jamet Cartier
and of Geseline Jansart, and Marie Katherine des Granches, daughter of
Messire Honor des Granches, chevalier of our lord the king, and
constable of the town and city of Saint-Malo.'

Cartier's marriage was childless, so that he left no direct descendants.
But the branches of the family descended from the original Jean Cartier
appear on the registers of St Malo, Saint Briac, and other places in
some profusion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
family seems to have died out, although not many years ago direct
descendants of Pierre Cartier, the uncle of Jacques, were still
surviving in France.

It is perhaps no great loss to the world that we have so little
knowledge of the ancestors and relatives of the famous mariner. It is,
however, deeply to be deplored that, beyond the record of his voyages,
we know so little of Jacques Cartier himself. We may take it for granted
that he early became a sailor. Brought up at such a time and place, he
could hardly have failed to do so. Within a few years after the great
discovery of Columbus, the Channel ports of St Malo and Dieppe were
sending forth adventurous fishermen to ply their trade among the fogs of
the Great Banks of the New Land. The Breton boy, whom we may imagine
wandering about the crowded wharves of the little harbour, must have
heard strange tales from the sailors of the new discoveries. Doubtless
he grew up, as did all the seafarers of his generation, with the
expectation that at any time some fortunate adventurer might find behind
the coasts and islands now revealed to Europe in the western sea the
half-fabled empires of Cipango and Cathay. That, when a boy, he came
into actual contact with sailors who had made the Atlantic voyage is not
to be questioned. We know that in 1507 the _Pense_ of Dieppe had
crossed to the coast of Newfoundland and that this adventure was soon
followed by the sailing of other Norman ships for the same goal.

We have, however, no record of Cartier and his actual doings until we
find his name in an entry on the baptismal register of St Malo. He stood
as godfather to his nephew, Etienne Nouel, the son of his sister
Jehanne. Strangely enough, this proved to be only the first of a great
many sacred ceremonies of this sort in which he took part. There is a
record of more than fifty baptisms at St Malo in the next forty-five
years in which the illustrious mariner had some share; in twenty-seven
of them he appeared as a godfather.

What voyages Cartier actually made before he suddenly appears in history
as a pilot of the king of France and the protg of the high admiral of
France we do not know. This position in itself, and the fact that at the
time of his marriage in 1519 he had already the rank of master-pilot,
would show that he had made the Atlantic voyage. There is some faint
evidence that he had even been to Brazil, for in the account of his
first recorded voyage he makes a comparison between the maize of Canada
and that of South America; and in those days this would scarcely have
occurred to a writer who had not seen both plants of which he spoke.
'There groweth likewise,' so runs the quaint translation that appears in
Hakluyt's _Voyages_, 'a kind of Millet as big as peason [_i.e._ peas]
like unto that which groweth in Bresil.' And later on, in the account of
his second voyage, he repeats the reference to Brazil; then 'goodly and
large fields' which he saw on the present site of Montreal recall to him
the millet fields of Brazil. It is possible, indeed, that not only had
he been in Brazil, but that he had carried a native of that country to
France. In a baptismal register of St Malo is recorded the christening,
in 1528, of a certain 'Catherine of Brezil,' to whom Cartier's wife
stood godmother. We may, in fancy at least, suppose that this forlorn
little savage with the regal title was a little girl whom the navigator,
after the fashion of his day, had brought home as living evidence of the
existence of the strange lands that he had seen.

Out of this background, then, of uncertainty and conjecture emerges, in
1534, Jacques Cartier, a master-pilot in the prime of life, now sworn
to the service of His Most Christian Majesty Francis I of France, and
about to undertake on behalf of his illustrious master a voyage to
the New Land.




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST VOYAGE--NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR


IT was on April 20, 1534, that Jacques Cartier sailed out of the port of
St Malo on his first voyage in the service of Francis I. Before leaving
their anchorage the commander, the sailing-masters, and the men took an
oath, administered by Charles de Mouy, vice-admiral of France, that they
would behave themselves truly and faithfully in the service of the Most
Christian King. The company were borne in two ships, each of about sixty
tons burden, and numbered in all sixty-one souls.

The passage across the ocean was pleasant. Fair winds, blowing fresh and
strong from the east, carried the clumsy caravels westward on the
foaming crests of the Atlantic surges. Within twenty days of their
departure the ice-bound shores of Newfoundland rose before their eyes.
Straight in front of them was Cape Bonavista, the 'Cape of Happy
Vision,' already known and named by the fishermen-explorers, who had
welcomed the sight of its projecting headlands after the weary leagues
of unbroken sea. But approach to the shore was impossible. The whole
coastline was blocked with the 'great store of ice' that lay against it.
The ships ran southward and took shelter in a little haven about five
leagues south of the cape, to which Cartier gave the name St Catherine's
Haven, either in fond remembrance of his wife, or, as is more probable,
in recognition of the help and guidance of St Catherine, whose natal
day, April 30, had fallen midway in his voyage. The harbourage is known
to-day as Catalina, and lies distant, as the crow flies, about eighty
miles north-westward of the present city of St John's in Newfoundland.
Here the mariners remained ten days, 'looking for fair weather,' and
engaged in mending and 'dressing' their boats.

At this time, it must be remembered, the coast of Newfoundland was, in
some degree, already known. Ships had frequently passed through the
narrow passage of Belle Isle that separates Newfoundland from the coast
of Labrador. Of the waters, however, that seemed to open up beyond, or
of the exact relation of the Newfoundland coastline to the rest of the
great continent nothing accurate was known. It might well be that the
inner waters behind the inhospitable headlands of Belle Isle would prove
the gateway to the great empires of the East. Cartier's business at any
rate was to explore, to see all that could be seen, and to bring news of
it to his royal master. This he set himself to do, with the persevering
thoroughness that was the secret of his final success. He coasted along
the shore from cape to cape and from island to island, sounding and
charting as he went, noting the shelter for ships that might be found,
and laying down the bearing of the compass from point to point. It was
his intent, good pilot as he was, that those who sailed after him should
find it easy to sail on these coasts.

From St Catherine's Harbour the ships sailed on May 21 with a fine
off-shore wind that made it easy to run on a course almost due north. As
they advanced on this course the mainland sank again from sight, but
presently they came to an island. It lay far out in the sea, and was
surrounded by a great upheaval of jagged and broken ice. On it and
around it they saw so dense a mass of birds that no one, declares
Cartier, could have believed it who had not seen it for himself. The
birds were as large as jays, they were coloured black and white, and
they could scarcely fly because of their small wings and their exceeding
fatness. The modern enquirer will recognize, perhaps, the great auk
which once abounded on the coast, but which is now extinct. The sailors
killed large numbers of the birds, and filled two boats with them. Then
the ships sailed on rejoicing from the Island of Birds with six barrels
full of salted provisions added to their stores. Cartier's Island of
Birds is the Funk Island of our present maps.

The ships now headed west and north to come into touch with land again.
To the great surprise of the company they presently met a huge polar
bear swimming in the open sea, and evidently heading for the tempting
shores of the Island of Birds. The bear was 'as great as any cow and
as white as a swan.' The sailors lowered boats in pursuit, and
captured 'by main force' the bear, which supplied a noble supper for
the captors. 'Its flesh,' wrote Cartier, 'was as good to eat as any
heifer of two years.'

The explorers sailed on westward, changing their course gradually to the
north to follow the broad curve of the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland.
Jutting headlands and outlying capes must have alternately appeared and
disappeared on the western horizon. May 24 found the navigators off the
entrance of Belle Isle. After four hundred years of maritime progress,
the passage of the narrow strait that separates Newfoundland from
Labrador remains still rough and dangerous, even for the great steel
ships of to-day. We can imagine how forbidding it must have looked to
Cartier and his companions from the decks of their small storm-tossed
caravels. Heavy gales from the west came roaring through the strait.
Great quantities of floating ice ground to and fro under the wind and
current. So stormy was the outlook that for the time being the passage
seemed impossible. But Cartier was not to be baulked in his design. He
cast anchor at the eastern mouth of the strait, in what is now the
little harbour of Kirpon (Carpunt), and there day after day,
stormbound by the inclement weather, he waited until June 9. Then
at last he was able to depart, hoping, as he wrote, 'with the help
of God to sail farther.'

[Illustration: MAP OF CARTIER'S VOYAGES

Prepared by James White, F.R.G.S.]

Having passed through the Strait of Belle Isle, Cartier crossed over to
the northern coast. Two days of prosperous sailing with fair winds
carried him far along the shore to a distance of more than a hundred
miles west of the entrance of the Strait of Belle Isle. Whether he
actually touched on his way at the island now known as Belle Isle is a
matter of doubt. He passed an island which he named St Catherine, and
which he warned all mariners to avoid because of dangerous shoals that
lay about it. We find his track again with certainty when he reaches the
shelter of the Port of Castles. The name was given to the anchorage by
reason of the striking cliffs of basaltic rock, which here give to the
shore something of the appearance of a fortress. The place still bears
the name of Castle Bay.

Sailing on to the west, Cartier noted the glittering expanse of Blanc
Sablon (White Sands), still known by the name received from these first
explorers. On June 10 the ships dropped anchor in the harbour of Brest,
which lies on the northern coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence among many
little islands lining the shore. This anchorage seems to have been known
already in Cartier's time, and it became afterwards a famous place of
gathering for the French fishermen. Later on in the sixteenth century a
fort was erected there, and the winter settlement about it is said to
have contained at one time as many as a thousand people. But its
prosperity vanished later, and the fort had been abandoned before the
great conflict had begun between France and Great Britain for the
possession of North America. Cartier secured wood and water at Brest.
Leaving his ships there for the time being, he continued his westward
exploration in his boats.

The careful pilot marked every striking feature of the coast, the
bearing of the headlands and the configuration of the many islands which
stud these rock-bound and inhospitable shores. He spent a night on one
of these islands, and the men found great quantities of ducks' eggs. The
next day, still sailing to the west, he reached so fine an anchorage
that he was induced to land and plant a cross there in honour of St
Servan. Beyond this again was an island 'round like an oven.' Still
farther on he found a great river, as he thought it, which came sweeping
down from the highlands of the interior.

As the boats lay in the mouth of the river, there came bearing down upon
them a great fishing ship which had sailed from the French port of La
Rochelle, and was now seeking vainly for the anchorage of Brest.
Cartier's careful observations now bore fruit. He and his men went in
their small boats to the fishing ship and gave the information needed
for the navigation of the coast. The explorers still pressed on towards
the west, till they reached a place which Cartier declared to be one of
the finest harbours of the world, and which he called Jacques Cartier
Harbour. This is probably the water now known as Cumberland Harbour.
The forbidding aspect of the northern shore and the adverse winds
induced Cartier to direct his course again towards the south, to the
mainland, as he thought, but really to the island of Newfoundland; and
so he now turned back with his boats to rejoin the ships. The company
gathered safely again at Brest on Sunday, June 14, and Cartier caused
a mass to be sung.

During the week spent in exploring the north shore, Cartier had not been
very favourably impressed by the country. It seemed barren and
inhospitable. It should not, he thought, be called the New Land, but
rather stones and wild crags and a place fit for wild beasts. The soil
seemed worthless. 'In all the north land,' said he, 'I did not see a
cartload of good earth. To be short, I believe that this was the land
that God allotted to Cain.' From time to time the explorers had caught
sight of painted savages, with heads adorned with bright feathers and
with bodies clad in the skins of wild beasts. They were roving upon the
shore or passing in light boats made of bark among the island channels
of the coast. 'They are men,' wrote Cartier, 'of an indifferent good
stature and bigness, but wild and unruly. They wear their hair tied on
the top like a wreath of hay and put a wooden pin within it, or any
other such thing instead of a nail, and with them they bind certain
birds' feathers. They are clothed with beasts' skins as well the men
as women, but that the women go somewhat straighter and closer in
their garments than the men do, with their waists girded. They paint
themselves with certain roan colours. Their boats are made with the
bark of birch trees, with the which they fish and take great store of
seals, and, as far as we could understand since our coming thither,
that is not their habitation, but they come from the mainland out of
hotter countries to catch the said seals and other necessaries for
their living.'

There has been much discussion as to these savages. It has been
thought by some that they were a southern branch of the Eskimos, by
others that they were Algonquin Indians who had wandered eastward from
the St Lawrence region. But the evidence goes to show that they
belonged to the lost tribe of the 'Red Indians' of Newfoundland, the
race which met its melancholy fate by deliberate and ruthless
destruction at the hands of the whites. Cabot had already seen these
people on his voyage to the coast, and described them as painted with
'red ochre.' Three of them he had captured and taken to England as an
exhibit. For two hundred years after the English settlement of
Newfoundland, these 'Red Indians' were hunted down till they were
destroyed. 'It was considered meritorious,' says a historian of the
island, 'to shoot a Red Indian. To "go to look for Indians" came to be
as much a phrase as to "look for partridges." They were harassed from
post to post, from island to island: their hunting and fishing
stations were unscrupulously seized by the invading English. They were
shot down without the least provocation, or captured to be exposed as
curiosities to the rabble at fairs in the western towns of Christian
England at twopence apiece.' So much for the ill-fated savages among
whom Cartier planted his first cross.

On June 15, Cartier, disappointed, as we have seen, with the rugged
country that he found on the northern shore, turned south again to
pick up the mainland, as he called it, of Newfoundland. Sailing south
from Brest to a distance of about sixty miles, he found himself on the
same day off Point Rich on the west coast of Newfoundland, to which,
from its appearance, he gave the name of the Double Cape. For three
days the course lay to the south-west along the shore. The panorama
that was unfolded to the eye of the explorer was cheerless. The wind
blew cold and hard from the north-east. The weather was dark and
gloomy, while through the rifts of the mist and fog that lay heavy on
the face of the waters there appeared only a forbidding and scarcely
habitable coast. Low lands with islands fringed the shore. Behind
them great mountains, hacked and furrowed in their outline, offered
an uninviting prospect. There was here no Eldorado such as, farther
south, met the covetous gaze of a Cortez or a Pizarro, no land of
promise luxuriant with the vegetation of the tropics such as had
greeted the eyes of Columbus at his first vision of the Indies. A
storm-bound coast, a relentless climate and a reluctant soil--these
were the treasures of the New World as first known to the discoverer
of Canada.

For a week Cartier and his men lay off the coast. The headland of
Cape Anguille marks the approximate southward limit of their
exploration. Great gales drove the water in a swirl of milk-white foam
among the rocks that line the foot of this promontory. Beyond this
point they saw nothing of the Newfoundland shore, except that, as the
little vessels vainly tried to beat their way to the south against the
fierce storms, the explorers caught sight of a second great promontory
that appeared before them through the mist. This headland Cartier
called Cape St John. In spite of the difficulty of tracing the
storm-set path of the navigators, it is commonly thought that the
point may be identified as Cape Anguille, which lies about twenty-five
miles north of Cape Ray, the south-west 'corner' of Newfoundland.

Had Cartier been able to go forward in the direction that he had been
following, he would have passed out between Newfoundland and Cape Breton
island into the open Atlantic, and would have realized that his New Land
was, after all, an island and not the mainland of the continent. But
this discovery was reserved for his later voyage. He seems, indeed, when
he presently came to the islands that lie in the mouth of the Gulf of St
Lawrence, to have suspected that a passage here lay to the open sea.
Doubtless the set of the wind and current revealed it to the trained
instinct of the pilot. 'If it were so,' he wrote, 'it would be a great
shortening as well of the time as of the way, if any perfection could be
found in it.' But it was just as well that he did not seek further the
opening into the Atlantic. By turning westward from the 'heel' of
Newfoundland he was led to discover the milder waters and the more
fortunate lands which awaited him on the further side of the Gulf.




CHAPTER III

THE FIRST VOYAGE--THE GULF OF ST LAWRENCE


ON June 25 Cartier turned his course away from Newfoundland and sailed
westward into what appeared to be open sea. But it was not long before
he came in sight of land again. About sixty miles from the Newfoundland
shore and thirty miles east from the Magdalen Islands, two abrupt rocks
rise side by side from the sea; through one of them the beating surf has
bored a passage, so that to Cartier's eye, as his ships hove in sight of
them, the rocks appeared as three. At the present time a lighthouse of
the Canadian government casts its rays from the top of one of these
rocky islets, across the tossing waters of the Gulf. Innumerable
sea-fowl encircled the isolated spot and built their nests so densely
upon the rocks as to cover the whole of the upper surface. At the base
of one of these Bird Rocks Cartier stopped his ships in their westward
course, and his men killed great numbers of the birds so easily that he
declared he could have filled thirty boats with them in an hour.

The explorers continued on their way, and a sail of a few hours brought
them to an island like to none that they had yet seen. After the
rock-bound coast of the north it seemed, indeed, a veritable paradise.
Thick groves of splendid trees alternated with beautiful glades and
meadow-land, while the fertile soil of the island, through its entire
length of about six miles, was carpeted with bright flowers, blossoming
peas, and the soft colours of the wild rose. 'One acre of this land,'
said Cartier, 'is worth more than all the New Land.' The ships lay off
the shore of the island all night and replenished the stores of wood and
water. The land abounded with game; the men of St Malo saw bears and
foxes, and, to their surprise they saw also great beasts that basked
upon the shore, with 'two great teeth in their mouths like elephants.'
One of these walruses,--for such they doubtless were,--was chased by the
sailors, but cast itself into the sea and disappeared. We can imagine
how, through the long twilight of the June evening, the lovely scene was
loud with the voices of the exultant explorers. It was fitting that
Cartier should name this island of good omen after his patron, the
Seigneur de Brion, admiral of France. To this day the name Brion
Island,--corrupted sometimes to Byron Island,--recalls the landing of
Jacques Cartier.

From this temporary halting-place the ships sailed on down the west
coast of the Magdalen Islands. The night of June 28 found them at anchor
off Entry Island at the southern end of the group. From here a course
laid to the south-west brought the explorers into sight of Prince Edward
Island. This they supposed to be, of course, the mainland of the great
American continent. Turning towards the north-west, the ships followed
the outline of the coast. They sailed within easy sight of the shore,
and from their decks the explorer and his companions were able to admire
the luxuriant beauty of the scene. Here again was a land of delight: 'It
is the fairest land,' wrote Cartier, 'that may possibly be seen, full of
goodly meadows and trees.' All that it lacked was a suitable harbour,
which the explorers sought in vain. At one point a shallow river ran
rippling to the sea, and here they saw savages crossing the stream in
their canoes, but they found no place where the ships could be brought
to anchor.

July 1 found the vessels lying off the northern end of Prince Edward
Island. Here they lowered the boats, and searched the shore-line for a
suitable anchorage. As they rowed along a savage was seen running upon
the beach and making signs. The boats were turned towards him, but,
seized with a sudden panic, he ran away. Cartier landed a boat and set
up a little staff in the sand with a woollen girdle and a knife, as a
present for the fugitive and a mark of good-will.

It has been asserted that this landing on a point called
Cap-des-Sauvages by Cartier, in memory of the incident, took place on
the New Brunswick shore. But the weight of evidence is in favour of
considering that North Cape in Prince Edward Island deserves the honour.
As the event occurred on July 1, some writers have tried to find a
fortunate coincidence in the landing of the discoverer of Canada on its
soil on the day that became, three hundred and thirty-three years later,
Dominion Day. But the coincidence is not striking. Cartier had already
touched Canadian soil at Brest, which is at the extreme end of the
Quebec coast, and on the Magdalen Islands.

Cartier's boats explored the northern end of Prince Edward Island for
many miles. All that he saw delighted him. 'We went that day on shore,'
he wrote in his narrative, 'in four places, to see the goodly sweet and
smelling trees that were there. We found them to be cedars, yews, pines,
white elms, ash, willows, with many other sorts of trees to us unknown,
but without any fruit. The grounds where no wood is are very fair, and
all full of peason [peas], white and red gooseberries, strawberries,
blackberries, and wild corn, even like unto rye, which seemed to have
been sowed and ploughed. This country is of better temperature than any
other land that can be seen, and very hot. There are many thrushes,
stock-doves, and other birds. To be short, there wanteth nothing but
good harbours.'

On July 2, the ships, sailing on westward from the head of Prince Edward
Island, came in sight of the New Brunswick coast. They had thus crossed
Northumberland Strait, which separates the island from the mainland.
Cartier, however, supposed this to be merely a deep bay, extending
inland on his left, and named it the Bay of St Lunario. Before him on
the northern horizon was another headland, and to the left the deep
triangular bay known now as Miramichi. The shallowness of the water and
the low sunken aspect of the shore led him to decide, rightly, that
there was to be found here no passage to the west. It was his hope, of
course, that at some point on his path the shore might fold back and
disclose to him the westward passage to the fabled empires of the East.
The deep opening of the Chaleur Bay, which extended on the left hand as
the ships proceeded north, looked like such an opening. Hopes ran high,
and Cartier named the projecting horn which marks the southern side of
the mouth of the bay the Cape of Good Hope. Like Vasco da Gama, when he
rounded South Africa, Cartier now thought that he had found the gateway
of a new world. The cheery name has, however, vanished from the map in
favour of the less striking one of Point Miscou.

Cartier sailed across the broad mouth of the bay to a point on the
north shore, now known as Port Daniel. Here his ships lay at anchor
till July 12, in order that he might carry on, in boats, the exploration
of the shore.

On July 6, after hearing mass, the first boat with an exploring party
set forth and almost immediately fell in with a great number of savages
coming in canoes from the southern shore. In all there were some forty
or fifty canoes. The Indians, as they leaped ashore, shouted and made
signs to the French, and held up skins on sticks as if anxious to enter
into trade. But Cartier was in no mind to run the risk of closer contact
with so numerous a company of savages. The French would not approach the
fleet of canoes, and the savages, seeing this, began to press in on the
strangers. For a moment affairs looked threatening. Cartier's boat was
surrounded by seven canoes filled with painted, gibbering savages. But
the French had a formidable defence. A volley of musket shots fired by
the sailors over the heads of the Indians dispersed the canoes in rapid
flight. Finding, however, that no harm was done by the strange thunder
of the weapons, the canoes came flocking back again, their occupants
making a great noise and gesticulating wildly. They were, however,
nervous, and when, as they came near, Cartier's men let off two muskets
they were terrified; 'with great haste they began to flee, and would no
more follow us.' But the next day after the boat had returned to the
ships, the savages came near to the anchorage, and some parties landed
and traded together. The Indians had with them furs which they offered
gladly in exchange for the knives and iron tools given them by the
sailors. Cartier presented them also with 'a red hat to give unto their
captain.' The Indians seemed delighted with the exchange. They danced
about on the shore, went through strange ceremonies in pantomime and
threw seawater over their heads. 'They gave us,' wrote Cartier,
'whatsoever they had, not keeping anything, so that they were
constrained to go back again naked, and made us signs that the next day
they would come again and bring more skins with them.'

Four more days Cartier lingered in the bay. Again he sent boats from the
ships in the hope of finding the westward passage, but to his great
disappointment and grief the search was fruitless. The waters were
evidently landlocked, and there was here, as he sadly chronicled, no
thoroughfare to the westward sea. He met natives in large numbers.
Hundreds of them--men, women, and children--came in their canoes to see
the French explorers. They brought cooked meat, laid it on little pieces
of wood, and, retreating a short distance, invited the French to eat.
Their manner was as of those offering food to the gods who have
descended from above. The women among them, coming fearlessly up to the
explorers, stroked them with their hands, and then lifted these hands
clasped to the sky, with every sign of joy and exultation. The Indians,
as Cartier saw them, seemed to have no settled home, but to wander to
and fro in their canoes, taking fish and game as they went. Their land
appeared to him the fairest that could be seen, level as a pond; in
every opening of the forest he saw wild grains and berries, roses and
fragrant herbs. It was, indeed, a land of promise that lay basking in
the sunshine of a Canadian summer. The warmth led Cartier to give to the
bay the name it still bears--Chaleur.

On July 12 the ships went north again. Their progress was slow.
Boisterous gales drove in great seas from the outer Gulf. At times the
wind, blowing hard from the north, checked their advance and they had,
as best they could, to ride out the storm. The sky was lowering and
overcast, and thick mist and fog frequently enwrapped the ships. The
16th saw them driven by stress of weather into Gasp Bay, where they lay
until the 25th, with so dark a sky and so violent a storm raging over
the Gulf that not even the daring seamen of St Malo thought it wise to
venture out.

Here again they saw savages in great numbers, but belonging, so Cartier
concluded, to a different tribe from those seen on the bay below. 'We
gave them knives,' he wrote, 'combs, beads of glass, and other trifles
of small value, for which they made many signs of gladness, lifting
their hands up to heaven, dancing and singing in their boats.' They
appeared to be a miserable people, in the lowest stage of savagery,
going about practically naked, and owning nothing of any value except
their boats and their fishing-nets. He noted that their heads were
shaved except for a tuft 'on the top of the crown as long as a horse's
tail.' This, of course, was the 'scalp lock,' so suggestive now of the
horrors of Indian warfare, but meaning nothing to the explorer. From its
presence it is supposed that the savages were Indians of the
Huron-Iroquois tribe. Cartier thought, from their destitute state, that
there could be no poorer people in the world.

Before leaving the Bay of Gasp, Cartier planted a great wooden cross at
the entrance of the harbour. The cross stood thirty feet high, and at
the centre of it he hung a shield with three fleurs-de-lis. At the top
was carved in ancient lettering the legend, 'VIVE LE ROY DE FRANCE.' A
large concourse of savages stood about the French explorers as they
raised the cross to its place. 'So soon as it was up,' writes Cartier,
'we altogether kneeled down before them, with our hands towards heaven
yielding God thanks: and we made signs unto them, shewing them the
heavens, and that all our salvation depended only on Him which in them
dwelleth; whereat they shewed a great admiration, looking first at one
another and then at the cross.'

The little group of sailors kneeling about the cross newly reared upon
the soil of Canada as a symbol of the Gospel of Christ and of the
sovereignty of France, the wondering savages turning their faces in awe
towards the summer sky, serene again after the passing storms,--all this
formed an impressive picture, and one that appears and reappears in the
literature of Canada. But the first effect of the ceremony was not
fortunate. By a sound instinct the savages took fright; they rightly saw
in the erection of the cross the advancing shadow of the rule of the
white man. After the French had withdrawn to their ships, the chief of
the Indians came out with his brother and his sons to make protest
against what had been done. He made a long oration, which the French
could not, of course, understand. Pointing shoreward to the cross and
making signs, the chief gave it to be understood that the country
belonged to him and his people. He and his followers were, however,
easily pacified by a few gifts and with the explanation, conveyed by
signs, that the cross was erected to mark the entrance of the bay. The
French entertained their guests bountifully with food and drink, and,
having gaily decked out two sons of the chief in French shirts and red
caps, they invited these young savages to remain on the ship and to sail
with Cartier. They did so, and the chief and the others departed
rejoicing. The next day the ships weighed anchor, surrounded by
boat-loads of savages who shouted and gesticulated their farewells to
those on board.

Cartier now turned his ships to the north-east. Westward on his left
hand, had he known it, was the opening of the St Lawrence. From the
trend of the land he supposed, however, that, by sailing in an easterly
direction, he was again crossing one of the great bays of the coast.
This conjecture seemed to be correct, as the coastline of the island of
Anticosti presently appeared on the horizon. From July 27 until August 5
the explorers made their way along the shores of Anticosti, which they
almost circumnavigated. Sailing first to the east they passed a
low-lying country, almost bare of forests, but with verdant and inviting
meadows. The shore ended at East Cape, named by Cartier Cape St Louis,
and at this point the ships turned and made their way north-westward,
along the upper shore of the island. On August 1, as they advanced, they
came in sight of the mainland of the northern shore of the Gulf of St
Lawrence, a low, flat country, heavily wooded, with great mountains
forming a jagged sky-line. Cartier had now, evidently enough, come back
again to the side of the great Gulf from which he had started, but,
judging rightly that the way to the west might lie beyond the Anticosti
coast, he continued on his voyage along that shore. Yet with every day
progress became more difficult. As the ships approached the narrower
waters between the west end of Anticosti and the mainland they met
powerful tides and baffling currents. The wind, too, had turned against
them and blew fiercely from the west.

For five days the intrepid mariners fought against the storms and
currents that checked their advance. They were already in sight of what
seemed after long searching to be the opening of the westward passage.
But the fierce wind from the west so beat against them that the clumsy
vessels could make no progress against it. Cartier lowered a boat, and
during two hours the men rowed desperately into the wind. For a while
the tide favoured them, but even then it ran so hard as to upset one of
the boats. When the tide turned matters grew worse. There came rushing
down with the wind and the current of the St Lawrence such a turmoil of
the waters that the united strength of the thirteen men at the oars
could not advance the boats by a stone's-throw. The whole company landed
on the island of Anticosti, and Cartier, with ten or twelve men, made
his way on foot to the west end. Standing there and looking westward
over the foaming waters lashed by the August storm, he was able to
realize that the goal of his search for the coast of Asia, or at least
for an open passage to the west, might lie before him, but that, for the
time being, it was beyond his reach.

Turning back, the party rejoined the ships which had drifted helplessly
before the wind some twelve miles down the shore. Arrived on board,
Cartier called together his sailing-master, pilots, and mates to
discuss what was to be done. They agreed that the contrary winds forbade
further exploration. The season was already late; the coast of France
was far away; within a few weeks the great gales of the equinox would be
upon them. Accordingly the company decided to turn back. Soon the ships
were heading along the northern shore of the Gulf, and with the
boisterous wind behind them were running rapidly towards the east. They
sailed towards the Newfoundland shore, caught sight of the Double Cape
and then, heading north again, came to Blanc Sablon on August 9. Here
they lay for a few days to prepare for the homeward voyage, and on
August 15 they were under way once more for the passage of Belle Isle
and the open sea.

'And after that, upon August 15,' so ends Cartier's narrative, 'being
the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, after that we had heard
service, we altogether departed from the port of Blanc Sablon, and with
a happy and prosperous weather we came into the middle of the sea that
is between Newfoundland and Brittany, in which place we were tossed and
turmoiled three days long with great storms and windy tempests coming
from the east, which with the aid and assistance of God we suffered:
then had we fair weather, and upon the fifth of September, in the said
year, we came to the port of St Malo whence we departed.'




CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND VOYAGE--THE ST LAWRENCE


THE second voyage of Jacques Cartier, undertaken in the years 1535 and
1536, is the exploit on which his title to fame chiefly rests. In this
voyage he discovered the river St Lawrence, visited the site of the
present city of Quebec, and, ascending the river as far as Hochelaga,
was enabled to view from the summit of Mount Royal the imposing panorama
of plain and river and mountain which marks the junction of the St
Lawrence and the Ottawa. He brought back to the king of France the
rumour of great countries still to be discovered to the west, of vast
lakes and rivers reaching so far inland that no man could say from what
source they sprang, and the legend of a region rich with gold and silver
that should rival the territory laid at the feet of Spain by the
conquests of Cortez. If he did not find the long-sought passage to the
Western Sea, at least he added to the dominions of France a territory
the potential wealth of which, as we now see, was not surpassed even by
the riches of Cathay.

The report of Cartier's first voyage, written by himself, brought to him
the immediate favour of the king. A commission, issued under the seal of
Philippe Chabot, admiral of France, on October 30, 1534, granted to him
wide powers for employing ships and men, and for the further prosecution
of his discoveries. He was entitled to engage at the king's charge three
ships, equipped and provisioned for fifteen months, so that he might be
able to spend, at least, an entire year in actual exploration. Cartier
spent the winter in making his preparations, and in the springtime of
the next year (1535) all was ready for the voyage.

By the middle of May the ships, duly manned and provisioned, lay at
anchor in the harbour of St Malo, waiting only a fair wind to sail. They
were three in number--the _Grande Hermine_ of 120 tons burden; a ship of
60 tons which was rechristened the _Petite Hermine_, and which was
destined to leave its timbers in the bed of a little rivulet beside
Quebec, and a small vessel of 40 tons known as the _Emerillon_ or
_Sparrow Hawk_. On the largest of the ships Cartier himself sailed, with
Claude de Pont Briand, Charles de la Pommeraye, and other gentlemen of
France, lured now by a spirit of adventure to voyage to the New World.
Mace Jalobert, who had married the sister of Cartier's wife, commanded
the second ship. Of the sailors the greater part were trained seamen of
St Malo. Seventy-four of their names are still preserved upon a roll of
the crew. The company numbered in all one hundred and twelve persons,
including the two savages who had been brought from Gasp in the
preceding voyage, and who were now to return as guides and interpreters
of the expedition.

Whether or not there were any priests on board the ships is a matter
that is not clear. The titles of two persons in the roll--Dom Guillaume
and Dom Antoine--seem to suggest a priestly calling. But the fact that
Cartier made no attempt to baptize the Indians to whom he narrated the
truths of the Gospel, and that he makes no mention of priests in
connection with any of the sacred ceremonies which he carried out, seem
to show that none were included in the expedition. There is, indeed,
reference in the narrative to the hearing of mass, but it relates
probably to the mere reading of prayers by the explorer himself. On one
occasion, also, as will appear, Cartier spoke to the Indians of what
his priests had told him, but the meaning of the phrase is doubtful.

Before sailing, every man of the company repaired to the Cathedral
Church of St Malo, where all confessed their sins and received the
benediction of the good bishop of the town. This was on the day and
feast of Pentecost in 1535, and three days later, on May 19, the ships
sailed out from the little harbour and were borne with a fair wind
beyond the horizon of the west. But the voyage was by no means as
prosperous as that of the year before. The ships kept happily together
until May 26. Then they were assailed in mid-Atlantic by furious gales
from the west, and were enveloped in dense banks of fog. During a month
of buffeting against adverse seas, they were driven apart and lost sight
of one another.

Cartier in the _Grande Hermine_ reached the coast of Newfoundland safely
on July 7, coming again to the Island of Birds. 'So full of birds it
was,' he writes, 'that all the ships of France might be loaded with
them, and yet it would not seem that any were taken away.' On the next
day the _Grande Hermine_ sailed on through the Strait of Belle Isle for
Blanc Sablon, and there, by agreement, waited in the hope that her
consorts might arrive. In the end, on the 26th, the two missing ships
sailed into the harbour together. Three days more were spent in making
necessary repairs and in obtaining water and other supplies, and on the
29th at sunrise the reunited expedition set out on its exploration of
the northern shore. During the first half of August their way lay over
the course already traversed from the Strait of Belle Isle to the
western end of Anticosti. The voyage along this coast was marked by no
event of especial interest. Cartier, as before, noted carefully the
bearing of the land as he went along, took soundings, and, in the
interest of future pilots of the coast, named and described the chief
headlands and landmarks as he passed. He found the coast for the most
part dangerous and full of shoals. Here and there vast forests extended
to the shore, but otherwise the country seemed barren and uninviting.

From the north shore Cartier sailed across to Anticosti, touching near
what is now called Charleton Point; but, meeting with head winds, which,
as in the preceding year, hindered his progress along the island, he
turned to the north again and took shelter in what he called a 'goodly
great gulf full of islands, passages, and entrances towards what wind
soever you please to bend.' It might be recognized, he said, by a great
island that runs out beyond the rest and on which is 'an hill fashioned
as it were an heap of corn.' The 'goodly gulf' is Pillage Bay in the
district of Saguenay, and the hill is Mount Ste Genevive.

From this point the ships sailed again to Anticosti and reached the
extreme western cape of that island. The two Indian guides were now in a
familiar country. The land in sight, they told Cartier, was a great
island; south of it was Gasp, from which country Cartier had taken them
in the preceding summer; two days' journey beyond the island towards the
west lay the kingdom of Saguenay, a part of the northern coast that
stretches westwards towards the land of Canada. The use of this name,
destined to mean so much to later generations, here appears for the
first time in Cartier's narrative. The word was evidently taken from the
lips of the savages, but its exact significance has remained a matter of
dispute. The most fantastic derivations have been suggested. Charlevoix,
writing two hundred years later, even tells us that the name originated
from the fact that the Spaniards had been upon the coast before
Cartier, looking for mines. Their search proving fruitless, they kept
repeating _aca nada_ (that is 'nothing here') in the hearing of the
savages, who repeated the words to the French, thus causing them to
suppose this to be the name of the country. There seems no doubt,
however, that the word is Indian, though whether it is from the Iroquois
Kannata, a settlement, or from some term meaning a narrow strait or
passage, it is impossible to say.

From Anticosti, which Cartier named the Island of the Assumption, the
ships sailed across to the Gasp side of the Gulf, which they saw on
August 16, and which was noted to be a land 'full of very great and high
hills.' According to the information of his Indian guides, he had now
reached the point beyond which extended the great kingdom of Saguenay.
The northern and southern coasts were evidently drawing more closely
together, and between them, so the savages averred, lay a great river.

'There is,' wrote Cartier in his narrative, 'between the southerly lands
and the northerly about thirty leagues distance and more than two
hundred fathoms depth. The said men did, moreover, certify unto us that
there was the way and beginning of the great river of Hochelaga, and
ready way to Canada, which river the farther it went the narrower it
came, even unto Canada, and that then there was fresh water which went
so far upwards that they had never heard of any man who had gone to the
head of it, and that there is no other passage but with small boats.'

The announcement that the waters in which he was sailing led inward to a
fresh-water river brought to Cartier not the sense of elation that
should have accompanied so great a discovery, but a feeling of
disappointment. A fresh-water river could not be the westward passage to
Asia that he had hoped to find, and, interested though he might be in
the rumoured kingdom of Saguenay, it was with reluctance that he turned
from the waters of the Gulf to the ascent of the great river. Indeed, he
decided not to do this until he had tried by every means to find the
wished-for opening on the coast of the Gulf. Accordingly, he sailed to
the northern shore and came to the land among the Seven Islands, which
lie near the mouth of the Ste Marguerite river, about eighty-five miles
west of Anticosti,--the Round Islands, Cartier called them. Here,
having brought the ships to a safe anchorage, riding in twenty fathoms
of water, he sent the boats eastward to explore the portion of the coast
towards Anticosti which he had not yet seen. He cherished a last hope
that here, perhaps, the westward passage might open before him. But the
boats returned from the expedition with no news other than that of a
river flowing into the Gulf, in such volume that its water was still
fresh three miles from the shore. The men declared, too, that they had
seen 'fishes shaped like horses,' which, so the Indians said, retired to
shore at night, and spent the day in the sea. The creatures, no doubt,
were walruses.

It was on August 15 that Cartier had left Anticosti for the Gasp shore:
it was not until the 24th that, delayed by the exploring expeditions of
the boats and by heavy fogs and contrary winds, he moved out from the
anchorage at the Seven Islands to ascend the St Lawrence. The season was
now far advanced. By this time, doubtless, Cartier had realized that the
voyage would not result in the discovery of the passage to the East.
But, anxious not to return home without having some success to report,
he was in any case prepared to winter in the New Land. Even though he
did not find the passage, it was better to remain long enough to explore
the lands in the basin of the great river than to return home without
adding anything to the exploits of the previous voyage.

The expedition moved westward up the St Lawrence, the first week's sail
bringing them as far as the Saguenay. On the way Cartier put in at Bic
Islands, and christened them in honour of St John. Finding here but
scanty shelter and a poor anchorage, he went on without further delay to
the Saguenay, the mouth of which he reached on September 1. Here this
great tributary river, fed from the streams and springs of the distant
north, pours its mighty waters between majestic cliffs into the St
Lawrence--truly an impressive sight. So vast is the flood that the great
stream in its wider reaches shows a breadth of three miles, and in
places the waters are charted as being more than eight hundred and
seventy feet deep. Narrowing at its mouth, it enters the St Lawrence in
an angry flood, shortly after passing the vast and frowning rocks of
Cape Eternity and Cape Trinity, rising to a height of fifteen hundred
feet. High up on the face of the cliffs, Cartier saw growing huge
pine-trees that clung, earthless, to the naked rock. Four canoes
danced in the foaming water at the river mouth: one of them made bold to
approach the ships, and the words of Cartier's Indian interpreters so
encouraged its occupants that they came on board. The canoes, so these
Indians explained to Cartier, had come down from Canada to fish.

Cartier did not remain long at the Saguenay. On the next day, September
2, the ships resumed their ascent of the St Lawrence. The navigation at
this point was by no means easy. The river here feels the full force of
the tide, whose current twists and eddies among the great rocks that lie
near the surface of the water. The ships lay at anchor that night off
Hare Island. As they left their moorings, at dawn of the following day,
they fell in with a great school of white whales disporting themselves
in the river. Strange fish, indeed, these seemed to Cartier. 'They were
headed like greyhounds,' he wrote, 'and were as white as snow, and were
never before of any man seen or known.'

Four days more brought the voyagers to an island, a 'goodly and fertile
spot covered with fine trees,' and among them so many filbert-trees that
Cartier gave it the name Isle-aux-Coudres (the Isle of Filberts), which
it still bears. On September 7 the vessels sailed about thirty miles
beyond Isle-aux-Coudres, and came to a group of islands, one of which,
extending for about twenty miles up the river, appeared so fertile and
so densely covered with wild grapes hanging to the river's edge, that
Cartier named it the Isle of Bacchus. He himself, however, afterwards
altered the name to the Island of Orleans. These islands, so the savages
said, marked the beginning of the country known as Canada.




CHAPTER V

THE SECOND VOYAGE--STADACONA


AT the time when Cartier ascended the St Lawrence, a great settlement of
the Huron-Iroquois Indians existed at Quebec. Their village was situated
below the heights, close to the banks of the St Charles, a small
tributary of the St Lawrence. Here the lodges of the tribe gave shelter
to many hundred people. Beautiful trees--elm and ash and maple and
birch, as fair as the trees of France--adorned the banks of the river,
and the open spaces of the woods waved with the luxuriant growth of
Indian corn. Here were the winter home of the tribe and the wigwam of
the chief. From this spot hunting and fishing parties of the savages
descended the great river and wandered as far as the pleasant country
of Chaleur Bay. Sixty-four years later, when Champlain ascended the
St Lawrence, the settlement and the tribe that formerly occupied the
spot had vanished. But in the time of Cartier the Quebec village,
under its native name of Stadacona, seems to have been, next to
Hochelaga, the most important lodgment of the Huron-Iroquois Indians
of the St Lawrence valley.

As the French navigators wandered on the shores of the Island of
Orleans, they fell in with a party of the Stadacona Indians. These,
frightened at the strange faces and unwonted dress of the French, would
have taken to flight, but Cartier's two Indians, whose names are
recorded as Taignoagny and Domagaya, called after them in their own
language. Great was the surprise of the natives not only to hear their
own speech, but also to recognize in Taignoagny and Domagaya two members
of their own tribe. The two guides, so far as we can judge from
Cartier's narrative, had come down from the Huron-Iroquois settlements
on the St Lawrence to the Gasp country, whence Cartier had carried them
to France. Their friends now surrounded them with tumultuous expressions
of joy, leaping and shouting as if to perform a ceremonial of welcome.
Without fear now of the French they followed them down to their boats,
and brought them a plentiful supply of corn and of the great pumpkins
that were ripening in their fields.

[Illustration: The _GRANDE HERMINE_, _PETITE HERMINE_,
and _EMERILLON_ in the St Lawrence, 1535]

The news of the arrival of the strangers spread at once through the
settlement. To see the ships, canoe after canoe came floating down the
river. They were filled with men and women eager to welcome their
returned kinsmen and to share in the trinkets which Cartier distributed
with a liberal hand. On the next day the chief of the tribe, the lord of
Canada, as Cartier calls him, Donnacona by name, visited the French
ships. The ceremonial was appropriate to his rank. Twelve canoes filled
with Indian warriors appeared upon the stream. As they neared the ships,
at a command from Donnacona, all fell back except two, which came close
alongside the _Emerillon_. Donnacona then delivered a powerful and
lengthy harangue, accompanied by wondrous gesticulations of body and
limbs. The canoes then moved down to the side of the _Grande Hermine_,
where Donnacona spoke with Cartier's guides. As these savages told him
of the wonders they had seen in France, he was apparently moved to very
transports of joy. Nothing would satisfy him but that Cartier should
step down into the canoe, that the chief might put his arms about his
neck in sign of welcome. Cartier, unable to rival Donnacona's oratory,
made up for it by causing the sailors hand down food and wine, to the
keen delight of the Indians. This being done, the visitors departed with
every expression of good-will.

Waiting only for a favourable tide, the ships left their anchorage, and,
sailing past the Island of Orleans, cast anchor in the St Charles river,
where it flows into the St Lawrence near Quebec. The _Emerillon_ was
left at anchor out in the St Lawrence, in readiness for the continuance
of the journey, but the two larger vessels were moored at the point
where a rivulet, the Lairet, runs into the St Charles. It was on the
left bank of the Lairet that Cartier's fort was presently constructed
for his winter occupancy. Some distance across from it, on the other
side of the St Charles, was Stadacona itself. Its site cannot be
determined with exactitude, but it is generally agreed that it was most
likely situated in the space between the present Rue de la Fabrique and
the Cte Sainte-Genevive.

The Indians were most friendly. When, on September 14, the French had
sailed into the St Charles, Donnacona had again met them, accompanied by
twenty-five canoes filled with his followers. The savages, by their
noisy conduct and strange antics, gave every sign of joy over the
arrival of the French. But from the first Cartier seems to have had his
misgivings as to their good faith. He was struck by the fact that his
two Indian interpreters, who had rejoined the ranks of their countrymen,
seemed now to receive him with a sullen distrust, and refused his
repeated invitations to re-enter his ships. He asked them whether they
were still willing to go on with him to Hochelaga, of which they had
told him, and which it was his purpose to visit. The two Indians
assented, but their manner was equivocal and inspired Cartier with
distrust.

The day after this a great concourse of Indians came again to the river
bank to see the strangers, but Donnacona and his immediate followers,
including Taignoagny and Domagaya, stood apart under a point of land on
the river bank sullenly watching the movements of the French, who were
busied in setting out buoys and harbour-marks for their anchorage.
Cartier, noticing this, took a few of his sailors, fully armed, and
marched straight to where the chief stood. Taignoagny, the interpreter,
came forward and entered upon a voluble harangue, telling the French
captain that Donnacona was grieved to see him and his men so fully
armed, while he and his people bore no weapons in their hands. Cartier
told Taignoagny, who had been in France, that to carry arms was the
custom of his country, and that he knew it. Indeed, since Donnacona
continued to make gestures of pleasure and friendship, the explorer
concluded that the interpreter only and not the Indian chief was the
cause of the distrust. Yet he narrates that before Donnacona left them,
'all his people at once with a loud voice cast out three great cries, a
horrible thing to hear.' The Indian war-whoop, if such it was, is
certainly not a reassuring sound, but Cartier and Donnacona took leave
of one another with repeated assurances of good-will.

The following day, September 16, the Indians came again. About five
hundred of them, so Cartier tells us, gathered about the ships.
Donnacona, with 'ten or twelve of the chiefest men of the country,'
came on board the ships, where Cartier held a great feast for them
and gave them presents in accordance with their rank. Taignoagny
explained to Cartier that Donnacona was grieved that he was going up
to Hochelaga. The river, said the guide, was of no importance, and
the journey was not worth while. Cartier's reply to this protest was
that he had been commanded by his king to go as far as he could go,
but that, after seeing Hochelaga, he would come back again. On this
Taignoagny flatly refused to act as guide, and the Indians abruptly
left the ship and went ashore.

Cartier must, indeed, have been perplexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the
conduct of the Stadacona natives. It was his policy throughout his
voyages to deal with the Indians fairly and generously, to avoid all
violence towards them, and to content himself with bringing to them the
news of the Gospel and the visible signs of the greatness of the king of
France. The cruelties of the Spanish conquerors of the south were
foreign to his nature. The few acts of injustice with which his memory
has been charged may easily be excused in the light of the circumstances
of his age. But he could not have failed to realize the possibilities of
a sudden and murderous onslaught on the part of savages who thus
combined a greedy readiness for feasting and presents with a sullen and
brooding distrust.

Donnacona and his people were back again on the morrow, still vainly
endeavouring to dissuade the French from their enterprise. They brought
with them a great quantity of eels and fish as presents, and danced and
sang upon the shore opposite the ships in token of their friendship.
When Cartier and his men came ashore, Donnacona made all his people
stand back from the beach. He drew in the sand a huge ring, and into
this he led the French. Then, selecting from the ranks of his followers,
who stood in a great circle watching the ceremony, a little girl of ten
years old, he led her into the ring and presented her to Cartier. After
her, two little boys were handed over in the same fashion, the assembled
Indians rending the air with shouts of exultation. Donnacona, in true
Indian fashion, improved the occasion with a long harangue, which
Taignoagny interpreted to mean that the little girl was the niece of the
chief and one of the boys the brother of the interpreter himself, and
that the explorer might keep all these children as a gift if he would
promise not to go to Hochelaga.

Cartier at once, by signs and speech, offered the children back again,
whereupon the other interpreter, Domagaya, broke in and said that the
children were given in good-will, and that Donnacona was well content
that Cartier should go to Hochelaga. The three poor little savages were
carried to the boats, the two interpreters wrangling and fighting the
while as to what had really been said. But Cartier felt assured that the
treachery, if any were contemplated, came only from one of them,
Taignoagny. As a great mark of trust he gave to Donnacona two swords, a
basin of plain brass and a ewer--gifts which called forth renewed shouts
of joy. Before the assemblage broke up, the chief asked Cartier to cause
the ships' cannons to be fired, as he had learned from the two guides
that they made such a marvellous noise as was never heard before.

'Our captain answered,' writes Cartier in his narrative, 'that he was
content: and by and by he commanded his men to shoot off twelve cannons
into the wood that was hard by the people and the ships, at which noise
they were greatly astonished and amazed, for they thought the heaven had
fallen upon them, and put themselves to flight, howling, crying and
shrieking, so that it seemed hell was broken loose.'

Next day the Indians made one more attempt to dissuade Cartier from his
journey. Finding that persuasion and oratory were of no avail, they
decided to fall back upon the supernatural and to frighten the French
from their design.

Their artifice was transparent enough, but to the minds of the simple
savages was calculated to strike awe into the hearts of their visitors.
Instead of coming near the ships, as they had done on each preceding
day, the Indians secreted themselves in the woods along the shore. There
they lay hid for many hours, while the French were busied with their
preparations for departure. But later in the day, when the tide was
running swiftly outward, the Indians in their canoes came paddling down
the stream towards the ships, not, however, trying to approach them, but
keeping some little distance away as if in expectation of something
unusual.

The mystery soon revealed itself. From beneath the foliage of the river
bank a canoe shot into the stream, the hideous appearance of its
occupants contrasting with the bright autumn tints that were lending
their glory to the Canadian woods. The three Indians in the canoe had
been carefully made up by their fellows as 'stage devils' to strike
horror into Cartier and his companions. They were 'dressed like devils,
being wrapped in dog skins, white and black, their faces besmeared as
black as any coals, with horns on their heads more than a yard long.'
The canoe came rushing swiftly down the stream, and floated past the
ships, the 'devils' who occupied the craft making no attempt to stop,
not even turning towards the ships, but counterfeiting, as it were, the
sacred frenzy of angry deities. The devil in the centre shouted a fierce
harangue into the air. No sooner did the canoe pass the ships than
Donnacona and his braves in their light barques set after it, paddling
so swiftly as to overtake the canoe of the 'devils' and seize the
gunwale of it in their hands.

The whole thing was a piece of characteristic Indian acting, viewed by
the French with interest, but apparently without the faintest alarm. The
'devils,' as soon as their boat was seized by the profane touch of the
savages, fell back as if lifeless in their canoe. The assembled flotilla
was directed to the shore. The 'devils' were lifted out rigid and
lifeless and carried solemnly into the forest. The leaves of the
underbrush closed behind them and they were concealed from sight, but
from the deck of the ship the French could still hear the noise of
cries and incantations that broke the stillness of the woods. After
half an hour Taignoagny and Domagaya issued from among the trees.
Their walk and their actions were solemnity itself, while their
faces simulated the religious ecstasy of men who have spoken with the
gods. The caps that they had worn were now placed beneath the folds
of their Indian blankets, and their clasped hands were uplifted to
the autumn sky. Taignoagny cried out three times upon the name of
Jesus, while his fellow imitated and kept shouting, 'Jesus! the
Virgin Mary! Jacques Cartier!'

Cartier very naturally called to them to know what was the matter;
whereupon Taignoagny in doleful tones called out, 'Ill news!' Cartier
urged the Indian to explain, and the guide, still acting the part of one
who bears tidings from heaven, said that the great god, Cudragny, had
spoken at Hochelaga and had sent down three 'spirits' in the canoe to
warn Cartier that he must not try to come to Hochelaga, because there
was so much ice and snow in that country that whoever went there should
die. In the face of this awful revelation, Cartier showed a cheerful and
contemptuous scepticism. 'Their god, Cudragny,' he said, must be 'a fool
and a noodle,' and that, as for the cold, Christ would protect his
followers from that, if they would but believe in Him. Taignoagny asked
Cartier if he had spoken with Jesus. Cartier answered no, but said that
his priests had done so and that Jesus had told them that the weather
would be fine. Taignoagny, hypocrite still, professed a great joy at
hearing this, and set off into the woods, whence he emerged presently
with the whole band of Indians, singing and dancing. Their plan had
failed, but they evidently thought it wiser to offer no further
opposition to Cartier's journey, though all refused to go with him.

The strange conduct of Donnacona and his Indians is not easy to explain.
It is quite possible that they meditated some treachery towards the
French: indeed, Cartier from first to last was suspicious of their
intentions, and, as we shall see, was careful after his return to
Stadacona never to put himself within their power. To the very end of
his voyage he seems to have been of the opinion that if he and his men
were caught off their guard, Donnacona and his braves would destroy the
whole of them for the sake of their coveted possessions. The stories
that he heard now and later from his guides of the horrors of Indian war
and of a great massacre at the Bic Islands certainly gave him just
grounds for suspicion and counselled prudence. Some writers are agreed,
however, that the Indians had no hostile intentions whatever. The
new-comers seemed to them wondrous beings, floating on the surface of
the water in great winged houses, causing the thunder to roll forth from
their abode at will and, more than all, feasting their friends and
giving to them such gifts as could only come from heaven. Such guests
were too valuable to lose. The Indians knew well of the settlement at
Hochelaga, and of the fair country where it lay. They feared that if
Cartier once sailed to it, he and his presents--the red caps and the
brass bowls sent direct from heaven--would be lost to them for ever.

Be this as it may, no further opposition was offered to the departure of
the French. The two larger ships, with a part of the company as guard,
were left at their moorings. Cartier in the _Emerillon_, with Mace
Jalobert, Claude de Pont Briand, and the other gentlemen of the
expedition, a company of fifty in all, set out for Hochelaga.




CHAPTER VI

THE SECOND VOYAGE--HOCHELAGA


NINE days of prosperous sailing carried Cartier in his pinnace from
Stadacona to the broad expansion of the St Lawrence, afterwards named
Lake St Peter. The autumn scene as the little vessel ascended the stream
was one of extreme beauty. The banks of the river were covered with
glorious forests resplendent now with the red and gold of the turning
leaves. Grape-vines grew thickly on every hand, laden with their
clustered fruit. The shore and forest abounded with animal life. The
woods were loud with the chirruping of thrushes, goldfinches,
canaries, and other birds. Countless flocks of wild geese and ducks
passed overhead, while from the marshes of the back waters great
cranes rose in their heavy flight over the bright surface of the
river that reflected the cloudless blue of the autumn sky.

Cartier was enraptured with the land which he had discovered,--'as
goodly a country,' he wrote, 'as possibly can with eye be seen, and all
replenished with very goodly trees.' Here and there the wigwams of the
savages dotted the openings of the forest. Often the inhabitants put off
from shore in canoes, bringing fish and food, and accepting, with every
sign of friendship, the little presents which Cartier distributed among
them. At one place an Indian chief--'one of the chief lords of the
country,' says Cartier--brought two of his children as a gift to the
miraculous strangers. One of the children, a little girl of eight, was
kept upon the ship and went on with Cartier to Hochelaga and back to
Stadacona, where her parents came to see her later on. The other child
Cartier refused to keep because 'it was too young, for it was but two or
three years old.'

At the head of Lake St Peter, Cartier, ignorant of the channels, found
his progress in the pinnace barred by the sand bars and shallows among
the group of islands which here break the flow of the great river. The
Indians whom he met told him by signs that Hochelaga lay still farther
up-stream, at a distance of three days' journey. Cartier decided to
leave the _Emerillon_ and to continue on his way in the two boats which
he had brought with him. Claude de Pont Briand and some of the
gentlemen, together with twenty mariners, accompanied the leader, while
the others remained in charge of the pinnace.

Three days of easy and prosperous navigation was sufficient for the
journey, and on October 2, Cartier's boats, having rowed along the
shores of Montreal island, landed in full sight of Mount Royal, at some
point about three or four miles from the heart of the present city. The
precise location of the landing has been lost to history. It has been
thought by some that the boats advanced until the foaming waters of the
Lachine rapids forbade all further progress. Others have it that the
boats were halted at the foot of St Mary's current, and others again
that Nun Island was the probable place of landing. What is certain is
that the French brought their boats to shore among a great crowd of
assembled savages,--a thousand persons, Cartier says,--and that they
were received with tumultuous joy. The Indians leaped and sang, their
familiar mode of celebrating welcome. They offered to the explorers
great quantities of fish and of the bread which they baked from the
ripened corn. They brought little children in their arms, making signs
for Cartier and his companions to touch them.

As the twilight gathered, the French withdrew to their boats, while the
savages, who were loath to leave the spot, lighted huge bonfires on the
shore. A striking and weird picture it conjures up before our eyes,--the
French sailors with their bronzed and bearded faces, their strange dress
and accoutrements, the glare of the great bonfires on the edge of the
dark waters, the wild dances of the exultant savages. The romance and
inspiration of the history of Canada are suggested by this riotous
welcome of the Old World by the New. It meant that mighty changes were
pending; the eye of imagination may see in the background the shadowed
outline of the spires and steeples of the great city of to-day.

[Illustration: CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA]

On the next day, October 3, the French were astir with the first light
of the morning. A few of their number were left to guard the boats; the
others, accompanied by some of the Indians, set out on foot for
Hochelaga. Their way lay over a beaten path through the woods. It
brought them presently to the tall palisades that surrounded the group
of long wooden houses forming the Indian settlement. It stood just
below the slope of the mountain, and covered a space of almost two
acres. On the map of the modern city this village of Hochelaga would be
bounded by the four streets, Metcalfe, Mansfield, Burnside, and
Sherbrooke, just below the site of McGill University. But the visit of
Cartier is an event of such historic interest that it can best be
narrated in the words of his own narrative. We may follow here as
elsewhere the translation of Hakluyt, which is itself three hundred
years old, and seems in its quaint and picturesque form more fitting
than the commoner garb of modern prose.

    Our captain [so runs the narrative], the next day very early in the
    morning, having very gorgeously attired himself, caused all his
    company to be set in order to go to see the town and habitation of
    these people, and a certain mountain that is somewhere near the
    city; with whom went also five gentlemen and twenty mariners,
    leaving the rest to keep and look to our boats. We took with us
    three men of Hochelaga to bring us to the place. All along as we
    went we found the way as well beaten and frequented as can be, the
    fairest and best country that can possibly be seen, full of as
    goodly great oaks as are in any wood in France, under which the
    ground was all covered over with fair acorns.

    After we had gone about four or five miles, we met by the way one of
    the chiefest lords of the city, accompanied with many more, who, as
    soon as he saw us, beckoned and made signs upon us, that we must
    rest in that place where they had made a great fire and so we did.
    After that we rested ourselves there awhile, the said lord began to
    make a long discourse, even as we have said above they are
    accustomed to do in sign of mirth and friendship, showing our
    captain and all his company a joyful countenance and good will, who
    gave him two hatchets, a pair of knives and a cross which he made
    him to kiss, and then put it about his neck, for which he gave our
    captain hearty thanks. This done, we went along, and about a mile
    and a half farther, we began to find goodly and large fields full of
    such corn as the country yieldeth. It is even as the millet of
    Brazil as great and somewhat bigger than small peason [peas],
    wherewith they live as we do with ours.

    In the midst of those fields is the city of Hochelaga, placed near
    and, as it were, joined to a very great mountain, that is tilled
    round about, very fertile, on the top of which you may see very far.
    We named it Mount Royal. The city of Hochelaga is round compassed
    about with timber, with three courses of rampires [stockades], one
    within another, framed like a sharp spire, but laid across above.
    The middlemost of them is made and built as a direct line but
    perpendicular. The rampires are framed and fashioned with pieces of
    timber laid along on the ground, very well and cunningly joined
    together after their fashion. This enclosure is in height about two
    rods. It hath but one gate of entry thereat, which is shut with
    piles, stakes, and bars. Over it and also in many places of the wall
    there be places to run along and ladders to get up, all full of
    stones, for the defence of it.

    There are in the town about fifty houses, about fifty paces long,
    and twelve or fifteen broad, built all of wood, covered over with
    the bark of the wood as broad as any board, very finely and
    cunningly joined together. Within the said houses there are many
    rooms, lodgings and chambers. In the midst of every one there is a
    great court in the middle whereof they make their fire.

Such is the picture of Hochelaga as Cartier has drawn it for us. Arrived
at the palisade, the savages conducted Cartier and his followers within.
In the central space of the stockade was a large square, bordered by the
lodges of the Indians. In this the French were halted, and the natives
gathered about them, the women, many of whom bore children in their
arms, pressing close up to the visitors, stroking their faces and arms,
and making entreaties by signs that the French should touch their
children.

    Then presently [writes Cartier] came the women again, every one
    bringing a four-square mat in the manner of carpets, and spreading
    them abroad in that place, they caused us to sit upon them. This
    done the lord and king of the country was brought upon nine or ten
    men's shoulders (whom in their tongue they call Agouhanna), sitting
    upon a great stag's skin, and they laid him down upon the foresaid
    mats near to the captain, every one beckoning unto us that he was
    their lord and king. This Agouhanna was a man about fifty years old.
    He was no whit better apparelled than any of the rest, only
    excepted that he had a certain thing made of hedgehogs [porcupines],
    like a red wreath, and that was instead of his crown. He was full of
    the palsy, and his members shrunk together. After he had with
    certain signs saluted our captain and all his company, and by
    manifest tokens bid all welcome, he showed his legs and arms to our
    captain, and with signs desired him to touch them, and so we did,
    rubbing them with his own hands; then did Agouhanna take the wreath
    or crown he had about his head, and gave it unto our captain. That
    done, they brought before him divers diseased men, some blind, some
    crippled, some lame, and some so old that the hair of their eyelids
    came down and covered their cheeks, and laid them all along before
    our captain to the end that they might of him be touched. For it
    seemed unto them that God was descended and come down from heaven
    to heal them.

    Our captain, seeing the misery and devotion of this poor people,
    recited the Gospel of St John, that is to say, 'IN THE BEGINNING
    WAS THE WORD,' touching every one that were [_sic_] diseased,
    praying to God that it would please Him to open the hearts of the
    poor people and to make them know His Holy Word, and that they
    might receive baptism and christendom. That done, he took a
    service-book in his hand, and with a loud voice read all the
    passion of Christ, word by word, that all the standers-by might
    hear him; all which while this poor people kept silence and were
    marvellously attentive, looking up to heaven and imitating us in
    gestures. Then he caused the men all orderly to be set on one side,
    the women on another, and likewise the children on another, and to
    the chiefest of them he gave hatchets, to the others knives, and to
    the women beads and such other small trifles. Then where the
    children were he cast rings, counters and brooches made of tin,
    whereat they seemed to be very glad.

Before Cartier and his men returned to their boats, some of the Indians
took them up to the top of Mount Royal. Here a magnificent prospect
offered itself, then, as now, to the eye. The broad level of the island
swept towards the west, luxuriant with yellow corn and autumn foliage.
In the distance the eye discerned the foaming waters of Lachine, and the
silver bosom of the Lake of the Two Mountains: 'as fair and level a
country,' said Cartier, 'as possibly can be seen, being level, smooth,
and very plain, fit to be husbanded and tilled.'

The Indians, pointing to the west, explained by signs that beyond the
rapids were three other great falls of water, and that when these were
passed a man might travel for three months up the waters of the great
river. Such at least Cartier understood to be the meaning of the
Indians. They showed him a second stream, the Ottawa, as great, they
said, as the St Lawrence, whose north-westward course Cartier supposed
must run through the kingdom of Saguenay. As the savages pointed to the
Ottawa, they took hold of a silver chain on which hung the whistle that
Cartier carried, and then touched the dagger of one of the sailors,
which had a handle of copper, yellow as gold, as if to show that these
metals, or rather silver and gold, came from the country beyond that
river. This, at least, was the way that Cartier interpreted the simple
and evident signs that the Indians made. The commentators on Cartier's
voyages have ever since sought some other explanation, supposing that no
such metals existed in the country. The discovery of the gold and silver
deposits of the basin of the Ottawa in the district of New Ontario
shows that Cartier had truly understood the signs of the Indians. If
they had ever seen silver before, it is precisely from this country that
it would have come. Cartier was given to understand, also, that in this
same region there dwelt another race of savages, very fierce, and
continually at war.

The party descended from the mountain and pursued their way towards the
boats. Their Indian friends hung upon their footsteps, showing evidences
of admiration and affection, and even carried in their arms any of the
French who showed indications of weariness. They stood about with every
sign of grief and regret as the sails were hoisted and the boats bearing
the wonderful beings dropped swiftly down the river. On October 4, the
boats safely rejoined the _Emerillon_ that lay anchored near the mouth
of the Richelieu. On the 11th of the same month, the pinnace was back at
her anchorage beside Stadacona, and the whole company was safely
reunited. The expedition to Hochelaga had been accomplished in
twenty-two days.




CHAPTER VII

THE SECOND VOYAGE--WINTER AT STADACONA


ON returning to his anchorage before Quebec, Cartier found that his
companions whom he had left there had not been idle. The ships, it will
be remembered, lay moored close to the shore at the mouth of the little
river Lairet, a branch of the St Charles. On the bank of the river,
during their leader's absence, the men had erected a solid fortification
or rampart. Heavy sticks of lumber had been set up on end and joined
firmly together, while at intervals cannon, taken from the ships, had
been placed in such a way as to command the approach in all directions.
The sequel showed that it was well, indeed, for the French that they
placed so little reliance on the friendship of the savages.

Donnacona was not long in putting in an appearance. Whatever may have
been his real feelings, the crafty old chief feigned a great delight at
the safe return of Cartier. At his solicitation Cartier paid a
ceremonial visit to the settlement of Stadacona, on October 13, ten days
after his return. The gentlemen of the expedition, together with fifty
sailors, all well armed and appointed, accompanied the leader. The
meeting between the Indians and their white visitors was similar to
those already described. Indian harangues and wild dancing and shouting
were the order of the day, while Cartier, as usual, distributed knives
and trinkets. The French were taken into the Indian lodges and shown the
stores of food laid up against the coming winter. Other objects, too, of
a new and peculiar interest were displayed: there were the 'scalp locks'
of five men--'the skin of five men's heads,' says Cartier,--which were
spread out on a board like parchments. The Indians explained that these
had been taken from the heads of five of their deadly enemies, the
Toudamani, a fierce people living to the south, with whom the natives of
Stadacona were perpetually at war.

A gruesome story was also told of a great massacre of a war party of
Donnacona's people who had been on their way down to the Gasp country.
The party, so the story ran, had encamped upon an island near the
Saguenay. They numbered in all two hundred people, women and children
being also among the warriors, and were gathered within the shelter of a
rude stockade. In the dead of night their enemies broke upon the
sleeping Indians in wild assault; they fired the stockade, and those who
did not perish in the flames fell beneath the tomahawk. Five only
escaped to bring the story to Stadacona. The truth of the story was
proved, long after the writing of Cartier's narrative, by the finding
of a great pile of human bones in a cave on an island near Bic, not
far from the mouth of the Saguenay. The place is called L'Isle au
Massacre to-day.

The French now settled down into their winter quarters. They seem for
some time to have mingled freely with the Indians of the Stadacona
settlement, especially during the month which yet remained before the
rigour of winter locked their ships in snow and ice. Cartier, being of
an observing and accurate turn of mind, has left in his narrative some
interesting notes upon the life and ideas of the savages. They had, he
said, no belief in a true God. Their deity, Cudragny, was supposed to
tell them the weather, and, if angry, to throw dust into their eyes.
They thought that, when they died, they would go to the stars, and
after that, little by little, sink with the stars to earth again, to
where the happy hunting grounds lie on the far horizon of the world. To
correct their ignorance, Cartier told them of the true God and of the
verities of the Christian faith. In the end the savages begged that he
would baptize them, and on at least one occasion a great flock of them
came to him, hoping to be received into the faith. But Cartier, as he
says, having nobody with him 'who could teach them our belief and
religion,' and doubting, also, the sincerity of their sudden conversion,
put them off with the promise that at his next coming he would bring
priests and holy oil and cause them to be baptized.

The Stadacona Indians seem to have lived on terms of something like
community of goods. Their stock of food--including great quantities of
pumpkins, peas, and corn--was more or less in common. But, beyond this
and their lodges, their earthly possessions were few. They dressed
somewhat scantily in skins, and even in the depth of winter were so
little protected from the cold as to excite the wonder of their
observers. Women whose husbands died never remarried, but went about
with their faces smeared thick with mingled grease and soot.

One peculiar custom of the natives especially attracted the attention of
their visitors, and for the oddity of the thing may best be recorded in
Cartier's manner. It is an early account of the use of tobacco. 'There
groweth also,' he wrote, 'a certain kind of herb, whereof in summer they
make a great provision for all the year, making great account of it, and
only men use it, and first they cause it to be dried in the sun, then
wear it about their necks, wrapped in a little beast's skin made like a
little bag, with a hollow piece of wood or stone like a pipe. Then when
they please they make powder of it, and then put it in one of the ends
of the said cornet or pipe, and laying a coal of fire upon it, at the
other end suck so long that they fill their bodies full of smoke till
that it cometh out of their mouth and nostrils, even as out of the
funnel of a chimney. They say that it doth keep them warm and in health:
they never go without some of it about them. We ourselves have tried the
same smoke, and, having put it in our mouths, it seemed almost as hot as
pepper.'

In spite of the going and coming of the Indians, Cartier from first to
last was doubtful of their intentions. Almost every day in the autumn
and early winter some of them appeared with eels and fish, glad to
exchange them for little trinkets. But the two interpreters endeavoured
to make the Indians believe that the things given them by the French
were of no value, and Donnacona did his best to get the Indian children
out of the hands of the French. Indeed, the eldest of the children, an
Indian girl, escaped from the ships and rejoined her people, and it was
only with difficulty that Cartier succeeded in getting her back again.
Meanwhile a visiting chief, from the country farther inland, gave the
French captain to understand that Donnacona and his braves were waiting
only an opportunity to overwhelm the ships' company. Cartier kept on his
guard. He strengthened the fort with a great moat that ran all round the
stockade. The only entry was now by a lifting bridge; and pointed stakes
were driven in beside the upright palisade. Fifty men, divided into
watches, were kept on guard all night, and, at every change of the
watch, the Indians, across the river in their lodges of the Stadacona
settlement, could hear the loud sounds of the trumpets break the clear
silence of the winter night.

We have no record of the life of Cartier and his followers during the
winter of their isolation among the snows and the savages of Quebec. It
must, indeed, have been a season of dread. The northern cold was soon
upon them in all its rigour. The ships were frozen in at their moorings
from the middle of November till April 15. The ice lay two fathoms thick
in the river, and the driving snows and great drifts blotted out under
the frozen mantle of winter all sight of land and water. The French
could scarcely stir from their quarters. Their fear of Indian treachery
and their ignorance of the trackless country about them held them
imprisoned in their ships. A worse peril was soon added. The scourge of
scurvy was laid upon them--an awful disease, hideous in its form and
deadly in its effect. Originating in the Indian camp, it spread to the
ships. In December fifty of the Stadacona Indians died, and by the
middle of February, of the hundred and ten men that made up Cartier's
expedition, only three or four remained in health. Eight were already
dead, and their bodies, for want of burial, lay frozen stark beneath the
snowdrifts of the river, hidden from the prying eyes of the savages.
Fifty more lay at the point of death, and the others, crippled and
staggering with the onslaught of disease, moved to and fro at their
tasks, their fingers numbed with cold, their hearts frozen with despair.

The plague that had fallen upon them was such as none of them had ever
before seen. The legs of the sufferers swelled to huge, unsightly, and
livid masses of flesh. Their sinews shrivelled to blackened strings,
pimpled with purple clots of blood. The awful disease worked its way
upwards. The arms hung hideous and useless at the side, the mouth rotted
till the teeth fell from the putrid flesh. Chilled with the cold,
huddled in the narrow holds of the little ships fast frozen in the
endless desolation of the snow, the agonized sufferers breathed their
last, remote from aid, far from the love of women, and deprived of the
consolations of the Church. Let those who realize the full horror of the
picture think well upon what stout deeds the commonwealth of Canada has
been founded.

Without the courage and resource of their leader, whose iron
constitution kept him in full health, all would have been lost. Cartier
spared no efforts. The knowledge of his situation was concealed from the
Indians. None were allowed aboard the ships, and, as far as might be, a
great clatter of hammering was kept up whenever the Indians appeared in
sight, so that they might suppose that Cartier's men were forced by the
urgency of their tasks to remain on the ships. Nor was spiritual aid
neglected. An image of the Virgin Mary was placed against a tree about a
bow-shot from the fort, and to this all who could walk betook themselves
in procession on the Sunday when the sickness was at its height. They
moved in solemn order, singing as they went the penitential psalms and
the Litany, and imploring the intercession of the Virgin. Thus passed
the days until twenty-five of the French had been laid beneath the snow.
For the others there seemed only the prospect of death from disease or
of destruction at the hands of the savages.

It happened one day that Cartier was walking up and down by himself upon
the ice when he saw a band of Indians coming over to him from Stadacona.
Among them was the interpreter Domagaya, whom Cartier had known to be
stricken by the illness only ten days before, but who now appeared in
abundant health. On being asked the manner of his cure, the interpreter
told Cartier that he had been healed by a beverage made from the leaves
and bark of a tree. Cartier, as we have seen, had kept from the Indians
the knowledge of his troubles, for he dared not disclose the real
weakness of the French. Now, feigning that only a servant was ill, he
asked for details of the remedy, and, when he did so, the Indians sent
their women to fetch branches of the tree in question. The bark and
leaves were to be boiled, and the drink thus made was to be taken twice
a day. The potion was duly administered, and the cure that it effected
was so rapid and so complete that the pious Cartier declared it a real
and evident miracle. 'If all the doctors of Lorraine and Montpellier had
been there with all the drugs of Alexandria,' he wrote, 'they could not
have done as much in a year as the said tree did in six days.' An entire
tree--probably a white spruce--was used up in less than eight days. The
scourge passed and the sailors, now restored to health, eagerly awaited
the coming of the spring.

Meanwhile the cold lessened; the ice about the ships relaxed its hold,
and by the middle of April they once more floated free. But a new
anxiety had been added. About the time when the fortunes of Cartier's
company were at their lowest, Donnacona had left his camp with certain
of his followers, ostensibly to spend a fortnight in hunting deer in
the forest. For two months he did not return. When he came back, he was
accompanied not only by Taignoagny and his own braves, but by a great
number of savages, fierce and strong, whom the French had never before
seen. Cartier was assured that treachery was brewing, and he determined
to forestall it. He took care that his men should keep away from the
settlement of Stadacona, but he sent over his servant, Charles Guyot,
who had endeared himself to the Indians during the winter. Guyot
reported that the lodges were filled with strange faces, that Donnacona
had pretended to be sick and would not show himself, and that he himself
had been received with suspicion, Taignoagny having forbidden him to
enter into some of the houses.

Cartier's plan was soon made. The river was now open and all was ready
for departure. Rather than allow himself and his men to be overwhelmed
by an attack of the great concourse of warriors who surrounded the
settlement of Stadacona, he determined to take his leave in his own way
and at his own time, and to carry off with him the leaders of the
savages themselves. Following the custom of his age, he did not wish to
return without the visible signs of his achievements. Donnacona had
freely boasted to him of the wonders of the great country far up beyond
Hochelaga, of lands where gold and silver existed in abundance, where
the people dressed like the French in woollen clothes, and of even
greater wonders still,--of men with no stomachs, and of a race of beings
with only one leg. These things were of such import, Cartier thought,
that they merited narration to the king of France himself. If Donnacona
had actually seen them, it was fitting that he should describe them in
the august presence of Francis I.

[Illustration: THE FINAL CEREMONY AT QUEBEC, MAY 3, 1536

From an old engraving]

The result was a plot which succeeded. The two ships, the _Grande
Hermine_ and the _Emerillon_, lay at anchor ready to sail. Owing to the
diminished numbers of his company, Cartier had decided to abandon the
third ship. He announced a final ceremony to signalize the approaching
departure. On May 3, 1536, a tall cross, thirty-five feet high was
planted on the river bank. Beneath the cross-bar it carried the arms of
France, and on the upper part a scroll in ancient lettering that read,
'FRANCISCUS PRIMUS DEI GRATIA FRANCORUM REX REGNAT,' which means, freely
translated, 'Francis I, by the grace of God King of the French, is
sovereign.' Donnacona, Taignoagny, Domagaya and a few others, who had
been invited to come on board the ships, found themselves the prisoners
of the French. At first rage and consternation seized upon the savages,
deprived by this stratagem of their chief. They gathered in great
numbers on the bank, and their terrifying howls and war-cries resounded
throughout the night. But Donnacona, whether from simplicity or craft,
let himself be pacified with new presents and with the promise of a
speedy return in the year following. He showed himself on the deck of
the captain's ship, and his delighted followers gathered about in their
canoes and swore renewed friendship with the white men, whom they had,
in all likelihood, plotted to betray. Gifts were exchanged, and the
French bestowed a last shower of presents on the assembled Indians.
Finally, on May 6, the caravels dropped down the river, and the homeward
voyage began.

The voyage passed without incident. The ships were some time in
descending the St Lawrence. At Isle-aux-Coudres they waited for the
swollen tide of the river to abate. The Indians still flocked about them
in canoes, talking with Donnacona and his men, but powerless to effect a
rescue of the chief. Contrary winds held the vessels until, at last, on
May 21, fair winds set in from the west that carried them in an easy run
to the familiar coast of Gasp, past Brion Island, through the passage
between Newfoundland and the Cape Breton shore, and so outward into the
open Atlantic.

'On July 6, 1536,' so ends Cartier's chronicle of this voyage, 'we
reached the harbour of St Malo, by the Grace of our Creator, whom we
pray, making an end of our navigation, to grant us His Grace, and
Paradise at the end. Amen.'




CHAPTER VIII

THE THIRD VOYAGE


NEARLY five years elapsed after Cartier's return to St Malo before he
again set sail for the New World. His royal master, indeed, had received
him most graciously. Francis had deigned to listen with pleasure to the
recital of his pilot's adventures, and had ordered him to set them down
in writing. Moreover, he had seen and conversed with Donnacona and the
other captive Indians, who had told of the wonders of their distant
country. The Indians had learned the language of their captors and spoke
with the king in French. Francis gave orders that they should be
received into the faith, and the registers of St Malo show that on March
25, 1538, or 1539 (the year is a little uncertain), there were baptized
three savages from Canada brought from the said country by 'honnete
homme [honest man], Jacques Cartier, captain of our Lord the King.'

But the moment was unsuited for further endeavour in the New World.
Francis had enough to do to save his own soil from the invading
Spaniard. Nor was it until the king of France on June 15, 1538, made a
truce with his inveterate foe, Charles V, that he was able to turn again
to American discovery. Profoundly impressed with the vast extent and
unbounded resources of the countries described in Cartier's narrative,
the king decided to assume the sovereignty of this new land, and to send
out for further discovery an expedition of some magnitude. At the head
of it he placed Jean Franois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, whom, on
January 15, 1540, he created Lord of Norumbega, viceroy and
lieutenant-general of Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle
Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos. The name
Norumbega is an Indian word, and was used by early explorers as a
general term for the territory that is now Maine, New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia. Baccalaos is the name often given by the French to
Newfoundland, the word itself being of Basque origin and meaning
'codfish,' while Carpunt will be remembered as a harbour beside Belle
Isle, where Cartier had been stormbound on his first voyage.

The king made every effort to further Roberval's expedition. The Lord of
Norumbega was given 45,000 livres and full authority to enlist sailors
and colonists for his expedition. The latter appears to have been a
difficult task, and, after the custom of the day, recourse was presently
had to the prisons to recruit the ranks of the prospective settlers.
Letters were issued to Roberval authorizing him to search the jails of
Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rouen, and Dijon and to draw from them any
convicts lying under sentence of death. Exception was made of heretics,
traitors, and counterfeiters, as unfitted for the pious purpose of the
voyage. The gangs of these miscreants, chained together and under guard,
came presently trooping into St Malo. Among them, it is recorded, walked
a young girl of eighteen, unconvicted of any crime, who of her own will
had herself chained to a malefactor, as hideous physically as morally,
whose lot she was determined to share.

To Roberval, as commander of the enterprise, was attached Cartier in the
capacity of captain-general and master-pilot. The letters patent which
contain the appointment speak of him as our 'dear and well-beloved
Jacques Cartier, who has discovered the large countries of Canada and
Hochelaga which lie at the end of Asia.' Cartier received from Roberval
about 31,300 livres. The king gave to him for this voyage the little
ship _Emerillon_ and commanded him to obtain four others and to arm and
equip the five. The preparations for the voyage seem to have lasted
throughout the winter and spring of the years 1540-41. The king had
urged Cartier to start by the middle of April, but it was not until May
23, 1541, that the ships were actually able to set sail. Even then
Roberval was not ready to leave. Cannon, powder, and a varied equipment
that had been purchased for the voyage were still lying at various
points in Normandy and Champagne. Cartier, anxious to follow the king's
wishes, could wait no longer and, at length, he set out with his five
ships, leaving Roberval to prepare other ships at Honfleur and follow as
he might. From first to last the relations of Cartier and Roberval
appear to need further explanation than that which we possess. Roberval
was evidently the nominal head of the enterprise and the feudal lord of
the countries to be claimed, but Cartier seems to have been restless
under any attempt to dictate the actual plan to be adopted, and his
final desertion of Roberval may be ascribed to the position in which he
was placed by the divided command of the expedition.

The expedition left St Malo on May 23, 1541, bearing in the ships food
and victuals for two years. The voyage was unprosperous. Contrary winds
and great gales raged over the Atlantic. The ships were separated at
sea, and before they reached the shores of Newfoundland were so hard put
to it for fresh water that it was necessary to broach the cider casks to
give drink to the goats and the cattle which they carried. But the ships
came together presently in safety in the harbour of Carpunt beside Belle
Isle, refitted there, and waited vainly for Roberval. They finally
reached the harbour of the Holy Cross at Stadacona on August 23.

The savages flocked to meet the ships with a great display of joy,
looking eagerly for the return of their vanished Donnacona. Their new
chief, Agouhanna, with six canoes filled with men, women, and children,
put off from the shore. The moment was a difficult one. Donnacona and
all his fellow-captives, except only one little girl, had died in
France. Cartier dared not tell the whole truth to the natives, and he
contented himself with saying that Donnacona was dead, but that the
other Indians had become great lords in France, had married there and
did not wish to return. Whatever may have been the feeling of the tribe
at this tale, the new chief at least was well pleased. 'I think,' wrote
Cartier, in his narrative of this voyage, 'he took it so well because he
remained lord and governor of the country by the death of the said
Donnacona.' Agouhanna certainly made a great show of friendliness. He
took from his own head the ornament of hide and wampum that he wore and
bound it round the brows of the French leader. At the same time he put
his arms about his neck with every sign of affection.

When the customary ceremonies of eating and drinking, speech-making, and
presentations had ended, Cartier, after first exploring with his boats,
sailed with his ships a few miles above Stadacona to a little river
where good anchorage was found, now known as the Cap Rouge river. It
enters the St Lawrence a little above Quebec. Here preparations were at
once made for the winter's sojourn. Cannon were brought ashore from
three of the ships. A strong fort was constructed, and the little
settlement received the pretentious name Charlesbourg Royal. The
remaining part of the month of August 1541 was spent in making
fortifications and in unloading the ships. On September 2 two of the
ships, commanded by Mace Jalobert, Cartier's brother-in-law and
companion of the preceding voyage, and Etienne Nouel, his nephew, were
sent back to France to tell the king of what had been done, and to let
him know that Roberval had not yet arrived.

As on his preceding voyages, Cartier was greatly impressed by the aspect
of the country about him. All round were splendid forests of oak and
maple and cedar and beech, which surpassed even the beautiful woodlands
of France. Grape vines loaded with ripe fruit hung like garlands from
the trees. Nor was the forest thick and tangled, but rather like an open
park, so that among the trees were great stretches of ground wanting
only to be tilled. Twenty of Cartier's men were set to turn the soil,
and in one day had prepared and sown about an acre and a half of ground.
The cabbage, lettuce, and turnip seed that they planted showed green
shoots within a week.

At the mouth of the Cap Rouge river there is a high point, now called
Redclyffe. On this Cartier constructed a second fort, which commanded
the fortification and the ships below. A little spring supplied fresh
water, and the natural situation afforded a protection against attack by
water or by land. While the French laboured in building the stockades
and in hauling provisions and equipments from the ships to the forts,
they made other discoveries that impressed them more than the forest
wealth of this new land. Close beside the upper fort they found in the
soil a good store of stones which they 'esteemed to be diamonds.' At the
foot of the slope along the St Lawrence lay iron deposits, and the sand
of the shore needed only, Cartier said, to be put into the furnace to
get the iron from it. At the water's edge they found 'certain leaves of
fine gold as thick as a man's nail,' and in the slabs of black
slate-stone which ribbed the open glades of the wood there were veins of
mineral matter which shone like gold and silver. Cartier's mineral
discoveries have unfortunately not resulted in anything. We know now
that his diamonds, still to be seen about Cap Rouge, are rock crystals.
The gold which he later on showed to Roberval, and which was tested,
proved genuine enough, but the quantity of such deposits in the region
has proved insignificant. It is very likely that Cartier would make the
most of his mineral discoveries as the readiest means of exciting his
master's interest.

When everything was in order at the settlement, the provisions landed,
and the building well under way, the leader decided to make a brief
journey to Hochelaga, in order to view more narrowly the rapids that he
had seen, and to be the better able to plan an expedition into the
interior for the coming spring. The account of this journey is the last
of Carder's exploits of which we have any detailed account, and even
here the closing pages of his narrative are unsatisfactory and
inconclusive. What is most strange is that, although he expressly says
that he intended to 'go as far as Hochelaga, of purpose to view and
understand the fashion of the saults [falls] of water,' he makes no
mention of the settlement of Hochelaga itself, and does not seem to have
visited it.

The Hochelaga expedition, in which two boats were used, left the camp at
Cap Rouge on September 7, 1541. A number of Cartier's gentlemen
accompanied him on the journey, while the Viscount Beaupr was left
behind in command of the fort. On their way up the river Cartier visited
the chief who had entrusted his little daughter to the care of the
French at Stadacona at the time of Cartier's wintering there. He left
two young French boys in charge of this Indian chief that they might
learn the language of the country. No further episode of the journey is
chronicled until on September 11 the boats arrived at the foot of the
rapids now called Lachine. Cartier tells us that two leagues from the
foot of the bottom fall was an Indian village called Tutonaguy, but he
does not say whether or not this was the same place as the Hochelaga of
his previous voyage. The French left their boats and, conducted by the
Indians, walked along the portage path that led past the rapids. There
were large encampments of natives beside the second fall, and they
received the French with every expression of good-will. By placing
little sticks upon the ground they gave Cartier to understand that a
third rapid was to be passed, and that the river was not navigable to
the country of Saguenay.

Convinced that further exploration was not possible for the time being,
the French returned to their boats. As usual, a great concourse of
Indians had come to the spot. Cartier says that he 'understood
afterwards' that the Indians would have made an end of the French, but
judged them too strong for the attempt. The expedition started at once
for the winter quarters at Cap Rouge. As they passed Hochelay--the abode
of the supposed friendly chief near Portneuf--they learned that he had
gone down the river ahead of them to devise means with Agouhanna for the
destruction of the expedition.

Cartier's narrative ends at this most dramatic moment of his adventures.
He seems to have reached the encampment at Cap Rouge at the very moment
when an Indian assault was imminent. We know, indeed, that the attack,
which, from certain allusions in the narrative, seems presently to have
been made, was warded off, and that Cartier's ships and a part at least
of his company sailed home to France, falling in with Roberval on the
way. But the story of the long months of anxiety and privation, and
probably of disease and hostilities with the Indians, is not recorded.
The narrative of the great explorer, as it is translated by Hakluyt,
closes with the following ominous sentences:

'And when we were arrived at our fort, we understood by our people that
the savages of the country came not any more about our fort, as they
were accustomed, to bring us fish, and that they were in a wonderful
doubt and fear of us. Wherefore our captain, having been advised by
some of our men which had been at Stadacona to visit them that there was
a wonderful number of the country people assembled together, caused all
things in our fortress to be set in good order.' And beyond these words,
Cartier's story was never written, or, if written, it has been lost.




CHAPTER IX

THE CLOSE OF CARTIER'S CAREER


GREAT doubt and uncertainty surround the ultimate fate of Roberval's
attempted colony, of which Cartier's expedition was to form the advance
guard. Roberval, as already seen, had stayed behind in France when
Cartier sailed in 1541, because his equipment was not yet ready for the
voyage. Nor does he seem to have finally started on his expedition for
nearly a year after the departure of Cartier. It has been suggested that
Roberval did set sail at some time in the summer of 1541, and that he
reached Cape Breton island and built a fort there. So, at least, a
tradition ran that was repeated many years later by Lescarbot in his
_Histoire de la Nouvelle France_. If this statement is true, it must
mean that Roberval sailed home again at the close of 1541, without
having succeeded in finding Cartier, and that he prepared for a renewed
expedition in the spring of the coming year. But the evidence for any
such voyage is not conclusive.

What we know is that on April 16, 1542, Roberval sailed out of the port
of Rochelle with three tall ships and a company of two hundred persons,
men and women, and that with him were divers gentlemen of quality. On
June 8, 1542, his ships entered the harbour of St John's in
Newfoundland. They found there seventeen fishing vessels, clear proof
that by this time the cod fisheries of the Newfoundland Banks were well
known. They were, indeed, visited by the French, the Portuguese, and
other nations. Here Roberval paused to refit his ships and to replenish
his stores. While he was still in the harbour, one day, to his
amazement, Cartier sailed in with the five ships that he was bringing
away from his abandoned settlement at Charlesbourg Royal. Cartier showed
to his superior the 'diamonds' and the gold that he was bringing home
from Canada. He gave to Roberval a glowing account of the country that
he had seen, but, according to the meagre details that appear in the
fragment in Hakluyt's _Voyages_, he made clear that he had been
compelled to abandon his attempt at settlement. 'He could not with his
small company withstand the savages, which went about daily to annoy
him, which was the cause of his return into France.'

Except what is contained in the few sentences of this record we know
nothing of what took place between Roberval and Cartier. But it was
quite clear that the latter considered the whole enterprise as doomed to
failure. It is more than likely that Cartier was dissatisfied with
Roberval's delay, and did not care to continue under the orders of a
leader inferior to himself in capacity. Be this as it may, their final
parting stands recorded in the following terms, and no historical
document has as yet come to light which can make the exact situation
known to us. 'When our general [Roberval], being furnished with
sufficient forces, commanded him [Cartier] to go back with him, he and
his company, moved as it seems with ambition, because they would have
all the glory of the discovery of those parts themselves, stole privily
away the next night from us, and, without taking their leaves, departed
home for Brittany.' The story, it must be remembered, comes from the pen
of either Roberval or one of his associates.

The subsequent history of Roberval's colony, as far as it is known, can
be briefly told. His ships reached the site of Charlesbourg Royal late
in July 1542. He landed stores and munitions and erected houses,
apparently on a scale of some magnitude, with towers and fortifications
and with great kitchens, halls, and living rooms. Two ships were sent
home in the autumn with news of the expedition, their leader being
especially charged to find out whether the rock crystals carried back by
Cartier had turned out to be diamonds. All the other colonists remained
and spent the winter in this place. In spite of their long preparation
and of their commodious buildings, they seem to have endured sufferings
as great as, or even greater than, those of Cartier's men at Stadacona
seven years before. Supplies of food ran short, and even in the autumn
before the stern winter had begun it was necessary to put the whole
company on carefully measured rations. Disease broke out among the
French, as it had broken out under Cartier, and about fifty of their
number perished before the coming of the spring. Their lot was rendered
more dreadful still by quarrelling and crime. Roberval could keep his
colonists in subjection only by the use of irons and by the application
of the lash. The gibbet, reared beside the fort, claimed its toll of
their number.

The winter of their misery drew slowly to its close. The ice of the
river began to break in April. On June 5, 1543, their leader, Roberval,
embarked on an expedition to explore the Saguenay, 'leaving thirty
persons behind in the fort, with orders that if Roberval had not
returned by the first of July, they were to depart for France.' Whither
he went and what he found we do not know. We read that on June 14
certain of his company came back with messages to the fort: that five
days later still others came back with instructions that the company at
the fort were to delay their departure for France until July 19. And
here the narrative of the colony breaks off.

Of Roberval's subsequent fate we can learn hardly anything. There is
some evidence to show that Cartier was dispatched from France to Canada
to bring him back. Certain it is that in April 1544 orders were issued
for the summons of both Cartier and Roberval to appear before a
commission for the settling of their accounts. The report of the royal
auditors credits Cartier apparently with a service of eight months spent
in returning to Canada to bring Roberval home. On the strength of this,
it is thought likely that Cartier, returning safely to France in the
summer of 1542, was sent back again at the king's command to aid in the
return of the colonists, whose enterprise was recognized as a failure.
After this, Roberval is lost to sight in the history of France. Certain
chroniclers have said that he made another voyage to the New World and
perished at sea. Others have it that he was assassinated in Paris near
the church of the Holy Innocents. But nothing is known.

[Illustration: CARTIER'S MANOR HOUSE AT LIMOILOU, NEAR ST MALO

From Baxter's 'Memoir of Jacques Cartier']

Cartier also is practically lost from sight during the last fifteen
years of his life. His name appears at intervals in the local records,
notably on the register of baptisms as a godfather. As far as can be
judged, he spent the remainder of his days in comfortable retirement in
his native town of St Malo. Besides his house in the seaport he had a
country residence some miles distant at Limoilou. This old house of
solid and substantial stone, with a courtyard and stone walls
surrounding it, is still standing. There can be no doubt that the famous
pilot enjoyed during his closing years a universal esteem. It is just
possible that in recognition of his services he was elevated in rank by
the king of France, for in certain records of St Malo in 1549, he is
spoken of as the Sieur de Limoilou. But this may have been merely the
sort of courtesy title often given in those days to the proprietors of
small landed estates.

It was sometimes the custom of the officials of the port of St Malo to
mark down in the records of the day the death of any townsman of
especial note. Such an entry as this is the last record of the great
pilot. In the margins of certain documents of September 1, 1557, there
is written in the quaint, almost unreadable penmanship of the time:
'This said Wednesday about five in the morning died Jacques Cartier.'

There is no need to enlarge upon the greatness of Cartier's
achievements. It was only the beginning of a far-reaching work, the
completion of which fell to other hands. But it is Cartier's proud place
in history to bear the title of discoverer of a country whose annals
were later to be illumined by the exploits of a Champlain and a La
Salle, and the martyrdom of a Brbeuf; which was to witness, for more
than half a century, a conflict in arms between Great Britain and
France, and from that conflict to draw the finest pages of its history
and the noblest inspiration of its future; a country upon whose soil,
majestic in its expanse of river, lake, and forest, was to be reared a
commonwealth built upon the union and harmony of the two great races who
had fought for its dominion.

Jacques Cartier, as much perhaps as any man of his time, embodied in
himself what was highest in the spirit of his age. He shows us the
daring of the adventurer with nothing of the dark cruelty by which such
daring was often disfigured. He brought to his task the simple faith of
the Christian whose devout fear of God renders him fearless of the
perils of sea and storm. The darkest hour of his adversity in that grim
winter at Stadacona found him still undismayed. He came to these coasts
to find a pathway to the empire of the East. He found instead a country
vast and beautiful beyond his dreams. The enthusiasm of it entered into
his soul. Asia was forgotten before the reality of Canada. Since
Cartier's day four centuries of history have hallowed the soil of Canada
with memories and associations never to be forgotten. But patriotism can
find no finer example than the instinctive admiration and love called
forth in the heart of Jacques Cartier by the majestic beauty of the land
of which he was the discoverer.




ITINERARY OF CARTIER'S VOYAGES

Adapted from Baxter's 'Memoir of Jacques Cartier'


VOYAGE OF 1534

April 20 Monday       Cartier leaves St Malo.

May   10 Sunday       Arrives at Bonavista.

 "   21 Thursday      Reaches Isle of Birds.

 "   24 Sunday        Enters the harbour of Kirpon.

June   9 Tuesday      Leaves Kirpon.

 "   10 Wednesday     Enters the harbour of Brest.

 "   11 Thursday      St Barnabas Day. Hears Mass and explores coast
                        in boats.

 "   12 Friday        Names St Anthoine, Servan; plants cross and
                        names river St Jacques, and harbour Jacques
                        Cartier.

 "   13 Saturday      Returns to ships.

 "   14 Sunday        Hears Mass.

 "   15 Monday        Sails toward north coast of Newfoundland.

 "   16 Tuesday       Follows the west coast of Newfoundland and names
                        the Monts des Granches.

 "   17 Wednesday     Names the Colombiers, Bay St Julien, and Capes
                        Royal and Milk.

 "   18 Thursday      Stormy weather to 24th; explores coast between
                        Capes Royal and Milk.

 "   24 Wednesday     Festival of St John the Baptist. Names Cape
                        St John.

 "   25 Thursday  )   Weather bad; sails toward the west and
          and     )     south-west; discovers Isles Margaux,
 "   26 Friday    )     Brion, and Cape Dauphin.

 "   27 Saturday      Coasts toward west-south-west.

 "   28 Sunday        Reaches Cape Rouge.

 "   29 Monday        Festival of St Peter. Names Alezay and Cape
                        St Peter, and continues course west-south-west.

 "   30 Tuesday       Towards evening descries land appearing like
                        two islands.

July   1 Wednesday    Names Capes Orleans and Savages.

 "     2 Thursday     Names Bay St Leonarius.

 "     3 Friday       Continues northerly course and names Cape Hope.

 "     4 Saturday     Arrives at Port Daniel; remains there until 12th.

 "    16 Thursday     Enters Gasp Bay, and remains until 25th on
                        account of storm.

 "    22 Wednesday    Lands and meets savages.

 "    24 Friday       Plants a cross.

 "    25 Saturday     Sets sail with good wind toward Anticosti.

 "    27 Monday       Approaches coast.

 "    28 Tuesday      Names Cape St Louis.

 "    29 Wednesday    Names Cape Montmorency and doubles East Cape
                        of Anticosti.

Aug.   1 Saturday     Sights northern shore of the Gulf of
                        St Lawrence.

 "     8 Saturday     Approaches west coast of Newfoundland.

 "     9 Sunday       Arrives at Blanc Sablon, and makes preparations
                        to return home.

 "    15 Saturday     Festival of the Assumption. Hears Mass and sets
                        sail for France.

Sept.  5 Saturday     Arrives at St Malo.


SECOND VOYAGE, 1535

May   16 Sunday       First Pentecost. The crew commune at Cathedral
                        and receive Episcopal Benediction.

 "    19 Wednesday    Departure from St Malo.

 "    26 Wednesday    Contrary winds.

June  25 Friday       Ships separated by storm.

July   7 Wednesday    Cartier reaches the Isle of Birds.

 "     8 Thursday     Enters Strait of Belle Isle.

 "    15 Thursday     Reaches the rendezvous at Blanc Sablon.

 "    26 Monday       Ships meet.

 "    29 Thursday     Follows north coast and names Isles St William.

 "    30 Friday       Names Isles St Marthy.

 "    31 Saturday     Names Cape St Germain.

Aug.   1 Sunday       Contrary winds; enters St Nicholas Harbour.

 "     8 Sunday       Sails toward the southern coast.

 "     9 Monday       Contrary wind; turns toward north and stops in
                        Bay St Lawrence.

 "    13 Friday       Leaves Bay St Lawrence, approaches Anticosti,
                        and doubles the western point.

 "    15 Sunday       Festival of the Assumption. Names Anticosti,
                        Isle of the Assumption.

 "    16 Monday       Continues along coast.

 "    17 Tuesday      Turns toward the north.

 "    19 Thursday     Arrives at the Seven Islands.

 "    20 Friday       Ranges coast with his boats.

 "    21 Saturday     Sails west, but obliged to return to the Seven
                        Islands owing to head winds.

 "    24 Tuesday      Leaves the Seven Islands and sets sail toward
                        south.

 "    29 Sunday       Martyrdom of St John Baptist. Reaches harbour of
                        Isles St John.

Sept.  1 Wednesday    Quits the harbour and directs his course toward
                        the Saguenay.

 "     2 Thursday     Leaves the Saguenay and reaches the Bic Islands.

 "     6 Monday       Arrives at Isle-aux-Coudres.

 "     7 Tuesday      Reaches Island of Orleans.

 "     9 Thursday     Donnacona visits Cartier.

 "    13 Monday       Sails toward the River St Charles.

 "    14 Tuesday      Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Reaches entrance of
                        St Charles River.

 "    15 Wednesday    Plants buoys to guide his ships.

 "    16 Thursday     Two ships are laid up for the winter.

 "    17 Friday       Donnacona tries to dissuade Cartier from going
                        to Hochelaga.

 "    18 Saturday     Donnacona's stratagem to deter Cartier from going
                        to Stadacona.

 "    19 Sunday       Cartier starts for Hochelaga with his pinnace and
                        two boats.

 "    28 Tuesday      Enters Lake St Peter.

 "    29 Wednesday    Leaves his pinnace, and proceeds with his boats.

Oct.   2 Saturday     Arrives at Hochelaga.

 "     3 Sunday       Lands and visits town and mountain, which he named
                        Mount Royal, and leaves Sunday.

 "     4 Monday       Regains his pinnace.

 "     5 Tuesday      Takes his way back to Stadacona.

 "     7 Thursday     Stops at Three Rivers, and plants cross upon
                        an island.

 "    11 Monday       Arrives at the anchorage beside Stadacona.

 "    12 Tuesday      Donnacona visits Cartier.

 "    13 Wednesday    Cartier and some of his men visit Stadacona.

1536

April 16 Sunday       Easter Sunday. The river clear of ice.

 "    22 Saturday     Donnacona visits Cartier with large number
                        of savages.

 "    28 Friday       Cartier sends Guyot to Stadacona.

May    3 Wednesday    Festival of the Holy Cross. A cross planted;
                        Cartier seizes Donnacona.

 "     5 Friday       The people of Stadacona bring provisions for
                        Cartier's captives.

 "     6 Saturday     Cartier sails.

 "     7 Sunday       Arrives at Isle-aux-Coudres.

 "    15 Monday       Exchanges presents with the savages.

 "    22 Monday       Reaches Isle Brion.

 "    25 Thursday     Festival of the Ascension. Reaches a low,
                        sandy island.

 "    26 Friday       Returns to Isle Brion.

June   1 Thursday     Names Capes Lorraine and St Paul.

 "     4 Sunday       Fourth of Pentecost. Names harbour of St Esprit.

 "     6 Tuesday      Departs from the harbour of St Esprit.

 "    11 Sunday       St Barnabas Day. At Isles St Pierre.

 "    16 Friday       Departs from Isles St Pierre and makes harbour
                        at Rougenouse.

 "    19 Monday       Leaves Rougenouse and sails for home.

July   6 Friday       Reaches St Malo.


THIRD VOYAGE, 1541

May   23 Monday       Cartier leaves St Malo with five ships.

Aug.  23 Tuesday      Arrives before Stadacona.

 "    25 Thursday     Lands artillery.

Sept.  2 Friday       Sends two of his ships home.

 "     7 Wednesday    Sets out for Hochelaga.

 "    11 Sunday       Arrives at Lachine Rapids.

(_The rest of the voyage is unknown._)




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


A great many accounts of the voyages of Jacques Cartier have been
written both in French and in English; but the fountain source of
information for all of these is found in the narratives written by
Cartier himself. The story of the first voyage was written under the
name of _Relation Originate du Voyage de Jacques Cartier au Canada en
1534_. The original manuscript was lost from sight for over three
hundred years, but about half a century ago it was discovered in the
Imperial Library (now the National Library) at Paris. Its contents,
however, had long been familiar to English readers through the
translation which appears in Hakluyt's _Voyages_, published in 1600. In
the same collection is also found the narrative of the second voyage, as
translated from the _Bref Recit_ written by Cartier and published in
1545, and the fragment of the account of the third voyage of which the
rest is lost. For an exhaustive bibliography of Cartier's voyages see
Baxter, _A Memoir of Jacques Cartier_ (New York, 1906). An exceedingly
interesting little book is Sir Joseph Pope's _Jacques Cartier: His Life
and Voyages_ (Ottawa, 1890). The student is also recommended to read
_The Saint Lawrence Basin and its Borderlands_, by Samuel Edward Dawson;
papers by the Abb Verreau, John Reade, Bishop Howley and W. R. Ganong
in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_; the chapter,
'Jacques Cartier and his Successors,' by B. F. de Costa, in Winsor's
_Narrative and Critical History of America_, and the chapter 'The
Beginnings of Canada,' by Arthur G. Doughty, in the first volume of
_Canada and its Provinces_ (Toronto, 1913).




INDEX


Agouhanna, Indian chief at Stadacona, 97, 98.

Anguille, Cape, called by Cartier Cape St John, 23.

Anticosti, 36, 37, 38, 45, 47.


Baccalaos, name given by the French to Newfoundland, 94.

Beaupr, Viscount, commander of fort at Cap Rouge, 101.

Belle Isle, Strait of, 16, 17, 45.

Bic Islands, 50.

Blanc Sablon, 17, 39.

Bonavista, Cape, 12, 13.

Brest, harbour, 17;
  fort and settlement at, 17.


Cap-des-Rosiers, medallion of Cartier found at, 3-4.

Cap-des-Sauvages, 28.

Cap Rouge river,
  Cartier's third expedition winters at, 98, 99;
  Cartier attacked by Indians at, 103.

Cartier, Jacques,
  portraits of, 1-4;
  birth, family history, marriage, 6, 7;
  little knowledge of before becoming a master-pilot, 8-11;
  sets out on first voyage of exploration, 12;
  first opinions of New Land, 19, 20;
  discovers Brion Island, 25-7;
  first trading with natives, 31;
  plants a cross with the fleurs-de-lis of France at Gasp, 34-6;
  takes two young Indians to France, 36;
  ships and company of second voyage, 42;
  reaches Newfoundland, 44;
  navigates and charts Strait of Belle Isle, 45;
  ascends the St Lawrence, 49, 50, 67;
  reaches Hochelaga, 69;
  describes Hochelaga and its people, 71-6;
  returns to Stadacona, 78;
  efforts to convert Indians, 82;
  describes Indians' use of tobacco, 83;
  strengthens his stockade, 84;
  carries off Donnacona and two interpreters to France, 91;
  made captain-general and master-pilot under Roberval, 95;
  sails without Roberval, 96;
  again visits Hochelaga, 101;
  meets Roberval at St John's, 106;
  returns to France, 107;
  sent out again to find Roberval, 109;
  dies at St Malo, 111;
  his courage and devotion, 112.

Castle Bay, 17.

Chaleur Bay, named by Cartier, 33.

Charlevoix, theory as to name Saguenay, 46.

Cudragny, an Indian deity, 64.

Cumberland Harbour, first named Jacques Cartier Harbour, 19.


Domagaya, one of the Indians Cartier took to France, 54, 60;
  tells Cartier cure for scurvy, 87-8;
  taken to France again, 91;
  baptized at St Malo, 93;
  dies in France, 97.

Donnacona, Indian chief, called by Cartier Lord of Canada, 55, 59, 60,
      65, 79;
  brings strange Indians to Stadacona, 89;
  taken to France by Cartier, 91;
  baptized at St Malo, 93;
  dies in France, 97.


East Cape, named Cape St Louis by Cartier, 37.


Francis I, 11;
  Cartier takes possession of land in his name at Gasp, 34;
    and at Stadacona, 90;
  meets Donnacona and other Indians, 93;
  decides to assume sovereignty of New Land, 94;
  sends out Roberval expedition, 94, 95.

Funk Island, Cartier's Island of Birds, 15.


Gasp Bay, wooden cross planted by Cartier at, 34-5.

Guyot, Charles, servant to Cartier, 89.


Hakluyt, translator of Cartier's narrative, 71, 103, 106.

Hochelaga, largest Indian settlement, 54;
  reached by Cartier, 69;
  Cartier again journeys to, 101.

Huron-Iroquois settlement at Quebec, 53.


Isle-aux-Coudres, named by Cartier, 51.


Jalobert, Mace, brother-in-law of Cartier, with him in second and third
      voyages, 43, 99.


Limoilou, Cartier's country place near St Malo, 110.

L'Isle au Massacre, 81.


Magdalen Islands, 25.

Miramichi Bay, 30.

Miscou, Point, first called Cape of Good Hope, 30.

Mount Royal, 69, 73, 76.


Newfoundland,
  fishing on the Banks, 8, 106;
  Cartier reaches, 12, 22;
  Roberval reaches, 106.

Nouel, Etienne, nephew of Cartier, 99.

Orleans, island of, first called by Cartier Isle of Bacchus, 52.

Ottawa river, described by Indians to Cartier, 77.


Pillage Bay, called a goodly gulf by Cartier, 46.

Pommeraye, Charles de la, with Cartier, 43.

Pont Briand, Claude de, with Cartier, 43, 69.

Port Daniel, 30.

Prince Edward Island, supposed by Cartier to be mainland, 27.


Redclyffe, Cartier builds fort at, 99.

'Red Indians' of Newfoundland, 21.

Roberval, Jean Franois de la Roque, Sieur de, first viceroy and
      lieutenant-general of Canada, etc., 94, 105;
  meets Cartier at Newfoundland, 106;
  reaches Charlesbourg Royal, 108;
  attempt to explore the Saguenay, 109.


Saguenay, 46;
  Cartier first hears the name, 48;
  Cartier reaches mouth of, 50;
  massacre of Donnacona's people at, 80, 81.

St Catherine's Haven, named by Cartier, 13.

St Catherine, island of, 17.

Ste Genevive, Mount, 46.

St Lawrence, Cartier ascends, 49, 50, 51.

St Lunario, Bay of, 29.

St Peter, Lake, first seen by Cartier, 67, 68.

St Malo, 1;
  birthplace of Cartier, 5;
  history of, 5, 6;
  Cartier sails from, 12, 42, 44;
  Cartier returns to, 92;
  Indians baptized at, 93;
  Cartier leaves on third expedition, 97;
  Cartier dies at, 111.

Scurvy, outbreak in Cartier's camp at Stadacona, 85-87.

Seven Islands, called by Cartier Round Islands, 48.

Stadacona, an Indian town,
  Cartier visits, 54, 78, 80, 97;
  mode of life of the natives, 82;
  their use of tobacco, 83.


Taignoagny,
  taken by Cartier to France, 54, 57-61, 63, 64;
  again taken to France, 91;
  baptized at St Malo, 93;
  dies in France, 97.

Toudamani, Indian foes of Donnacona's tribe, 80.

Tutonaguy, an Indian village, 102.


Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press




Transcriber's Notes:


Inconsistencies in hyphenation of words retained. (storm-bound,
stormbound)

Pg 123, Index, added comma after entry and before page number. (Strait
of Belle Isle, 45;)




[End of _The Mariner of St Malo_ by Stephen Leacock]