the distrust. Yet he narrates that before Donnacona left them,
'all his people at once with a loud voice cast out three great cries, a
horrible thing to hear.' The Indian war-whoop, if such it was, is
certainly not a reassuring sound, but Cartier and Donnacona took leave
of one another with repeated assurances of good-will.

The following day, September 16, the Indians came again. About five
hundred of them, so Cartier tells us, gathered about the ships.
Donnacona, with 'ten or twelve of the chiefest men of the country,'
came on board the ships, where Cartier held a great feast for them and
gave them presents in accordance with their rank. Taignoagny explained
to Cartier that Donnacona was grieved that he was going up to
Hochelaga. The river, said the guide, was of no importance, and the
journey was not worth while. Cartier's reply to this protest was that
he had been commanded by his king to go as far as he could go, but
that, after seeing Hochelaga, he would come back again. On this
Taignoagny flatly refused to act as guide, and the Indians abruptly
left the ship and went ashore.

Cartier must, indeed, have been perplexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the
conduct of the Stadacona natives. It was his policy throughout his
voyages to deal with the Indians fairly and generously, to avoid all
violence towards them, and to content himself with bringing to them the
news of the Gospel and the visible signs of the greatness of the king
of France. The cruelties of the Spanish conquerors of the south were
foreign to his nature. The few acts of injustice with which his memory
has been charged may easily be excused in the light of the
circumstances of his age. But he could not have failed to realize the
possibilities of a sudden and murderous onslaught on the part of
savages who thus combined a greedy readiness for feasting and presents
with a sullen and brooding distrust.

Donnacona and his people were back again on the morrow, still vainly
endeavouring to dissuade the French from their enterprise. They brought
with them a great quantity of eels and fish as presents, and danced and
sang upon the shore opposite the ships in token of their friendship.
When Cartier and his men came ashore, Donnacona made all his people
stand back from the beach. He drew in the sand a huge ring, and into
this he led the French. Then, selecting from the ranks of his
followers, who stood in a great circle watching the ceremony, a little
girl of ten yea