ration of
the northern shore. During the first half of August their way lay over
the course already traversed from the Strait of Belle Isle to the
western end of Anticosti. The voyage along this coast was marked by no
event of especial interest. Cartier, as before, noted carefully the
bearing of the land as he went along, took soundings, and, in the
interest of future pilots of the coast, named and described the chief
headlands and landmarks as he passed. He found the coast for the most
part dangerous and full of shoals. Here and there vast forests extended
to the shore, but otherwise the country seemed barren and uninviting.

From the north shore Cartier sailed across to Anticosti, touching near
what is now called Charleton Point; but, meeting with head winds,
which, as in the preceding year, hindered his progress along the
island, he turned to the north again and took shelter in what he called
a 'goodly great gulf full of islands, passages, and entrances towards
what wind soever you please to bend.' It might be recognized, he said,
by a great island that runs out beyond the rest and on which is 'an
hill fashioned as it were an heap of corn.' The 'goodly gulf' is
Pillage Bay in the district of Saguenay, and the hill is Mount Ste
Genevieve.

From this point the ships sailed again to Anticosti and reached the
extreme western cape of that island. The two Indian guides were now in
a familiar country. The land in sight, they told Cartier, was a great
island; south of it was Gaspe, from which country Cartier had taken
them in the preceding summer; two days' journey beyond the island
towards the west lay the kingdom of Saguenay, a part of the northern
coast that stretches westwards towards the land of Canada. The use of
this name, destined to mean so much to later generations, here appears
for the first time in Cartier's narrative. The word was evidently taken
from the lips of the savages, but its exact significance has remained a
matter of dispute. The most fantastic derivations have been suggested.
Charlevoix, writing two hundred years later, even tells us that the
name originated from the fact that the Spaniards had been upon the
coast before Cartier, looking for mines. Their search proving
fruitless, they kept repeating 'aca nada' (that is 'nothing here') in
the hearing of the savages, who repeated the words to the French, thus
causing them to suppose this to be the name of the country. There seems
no doubt, however, th