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

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 thickl

shes of the back waters great cranes rose in their heavy flight over the bri

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 str

t 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 i

me 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 thousa

th 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

ed 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 Univer

tain 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

aid 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, f

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 joine

with the bark of the wood as broad as any board, very finely and cunningly joined together. Within the said houses there are

f 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 b

Agouhanna was a man about fifty pears 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

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 m

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

ointed 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 ot

ations 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 a