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 Gaspe, 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,
showing them the heavens, and that all our salvation depended only on
Him which in them dwelleth; whereat they showed 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 After the French had withdrawn to their ships,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