e 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 kn