, 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 sla