The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier

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 e

ea-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

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 Gaspe. It was the fashion of the time to attempt by such decorations to make maps vivid. Demons, deities, mythological figures and naked savages disported the

d 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

er 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 t

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

, 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 t

ere 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

ier 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 no

rth 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 Honore 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 amo

r appear on the registers of St Malo, Saint Briac, and other places in some profusion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The famil

us, 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

enne 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

h 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

master-pilot in the prime of life, now sworn to the service of His Most Christian Majesty Francis