tream, at a distance of three days' journey. Cartier decided to
leave the Emerillon and to continue on his way in the two boats which
he had brought with him. Claude de Pont Briand and some of the
gentlemen, together with twenty mariners, accompanied the leader, while
the others remained in charge of the pinnace.

Three days of easy and prosperous navigation was sufficient for the
journey, and on October 2, Cartier's boats, having rowed along the
shores of Montreal island, landed in full sight of Mount Royal, at some
point about three or four miles from the heart of the present city. The
precise location of the landing has been lost to history. It has been
thought by some that the boats advanced until the foaming waters of the
Lachine rapids forbade all further progress. Others have it that the
boats were halted at the foot of St Mary's current, and others again
that Nun Island was the probable place of landing. What is certain is
that the French brought their boats to shore among a great crowd of
assembled savages,--a thousand persons, Cartier says,--and that they
were received with tumultuous joy. The Indians leaped and sang, their
familiar mode of celebrating welcome. They offered to the explorers
great quantities of fish and of the bread which they baked from the
ripened corn. They brought little children in their arms, making signs
for Cartier and his companions to touch them.

As the twilight gathered, the French withdrew to their boats, while the
savages, who were loath to leave the spot, lighted huge bonfires on the
shore. A striking and weird picture it conjures up before our
eyes,--the French sailors with their bronzed and bearded faces, their
strange dress and accoutrements, the glare of the great bonfires on the
edge of the dark waters, the wild dances of the exultant savages. The
romance and inspiration of the history of Canada are suggested by this
riotous welcome of the Old World by the New. It meant that mighty
changes were pending; the eye of imagination may see in the background
the shadowed outline of the spires and steeples of the great city of
to-day.

On the next day, October 3, the French were astir with the first light
of the morning. A few of their number were left to guard the boats; the
others, accompanied by some of the Indians, set out on foot for
Hochelaga. Their way lay over a beaten path through the woods. It
brought them presently to the tall palisades that surrounded the group
of lon