t so beat against them that the clumsy
vessels could make no progress against it. Cartier lowered a boat, and
during two hours the men rowed desperately into the wind. For a while
the tide favoured them, but even then it ran so hard as to upset one of
the boats. When the tide turned matters grew worse. There came rushing
down with the wind and the current of the St Lawrence such a turmoil of
the waters that the united strength of the thirteen men at the oars
could not advance the boats by a stone's-throw. The whole company
landed on the island of Anticosti, and Cartier, with ten or twelve men,
made his way on foot to the west end. Standing there and looking
westward over the foaming waters lashed by the August storm, he was
able to realize that the goal of his search for the coast of Asia, or
at least for an open passage to the west, might lie before him, but
that, for the time being, it was beyond his reach.

Turning back, the party rejoined the ships which had drifted helplessly
before the wind some twelve miles down the shore. Arrived on board,
Cartier called together his sailing-master, pilots, and mates to
discuss what was to be done. They agreed that the contrary winds
forbade further exploration. The season was already late; the coast of
France was far away; within a few weeks the great gales of the equinox
would be upon them. Accordingly the company decided to turn back. Soon
the ships were heading along the northern shore of the Gulf, and with
the boisterous wind behind them were running rapidly towards the east.
They sailed towards the Newfoundland shore, caught sight of the Double
Cape and then, heading north again, came to Blanc Sablon on August 9.
Here they lay for a few days to prepare for the homeward voyage, and on
August 15 they were under way once more for the passage of Belle Isle
and the open sea.

'And after that, upon August 15,' so ends Cartier's narrative, 'being
the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, after that we had heard
service, we altogether departed from the port of Blanc Sablon, and with
a happy and prosperous weather we came into the middle of the sea that
is between Newfoundland and Brittany, in which place we were tossed and
turmoiled three days long with great storms and windy tempests coming
from the east, which with the aid and assistance of God we suffered:
then had we fair weather, and upon the fifth of September, in the said
year, we came to the port of St Malo whence we depar