at the word is Indian, though whether it is from
the Iroquois Kannata, a settlement, or from some term meaning a narrow
strait or passage, it is impossible to say.

From Anticosti, which Cartier named the Island of the Assumption, the
ships sailed across to the Gaspe side of the Gulf, which they saw on
August 16, and which was noted to be a land 'full of very great and
high hills.' According to the information of his Indian guides, he had
now reached the point beyond which extended the great kingdom of
Saguenay. The northern and southern coasts were evidently drawing more
closely together, and between them, so the savages averred, lay a great
river.

'There is,' wrote Cartier in his narrative, 'between the southerly
lands and the northerly about thirty leagues distance and more than two
hundred fathoms depth. The said men did, moreover, certify unto us that
there was the way and beginning of the great river of Hochelaga, and
ready way to Canada, which river the farther it went the narrower it
came, even unto Canada, and that then there was fresh water which went
so far upwards that they had never heard of any man who had gone to the
head of it, and that there is no other passage but with small boats.'

The announcement that the waters in which he was sailing led inward to
a fresh-water river brought to Cartier not the sense of elation that
should have accompanied so great a discovery, but a feeling of
disappointment. A fresh-water river could not be the westward passage
to Asia that he had hoped to find, and, interested though he might be
in the rumoured kingdom of Saguenay, it was with reluctance that he
turned from the waters of the Gulf to the ascent of the great river.
Indeed, he decided not to do this until he had tried by every means to
find the wished-for opening on the coast of the Gulf. Accordingly, he
sailed to the northern shore and came to the land among the Seven
Islands, which lie near the mouth of the Ste Marguerite river, about
eighty-five miles west of Anticosti,--the Round Islands, Cartier called
them. Here, having brought the ships to a safe anchorage, riding in
twenty fathoms of water, he sent the boats eastward to explore the
portion of the coast towards Anticosti which he had not yet seen. He
cherished a last hope that here, perhaps, the westward passage might
open before him. But the boats returned from the expedition with no
news other than that of a river flowing into the Gulf, in such volume