odefroy, an interpreter.[2] Jean Baptiste, Radisson's nephew,
invested 500 pounds in goods for barter. Others of Three Rivers and
Quebec advanced money, to provision the ship.[3] Ten days after
Radisson's arrival in Quebec, the explorers had left the high fortress
of the St. Lawrence to winter in Acadia. When spring came, they went
with the fishing fleets to Isle Percee, where La Chesnaye was to send
the ships. Radisson's ship, the _St. Pierre_,--named after
himself,--came first, a rickety sloop of fifty tons with a crew of
twelve mutinous, ill-fed men, a cargo of goods for barter, and scant
enough supply of provisions. Groseillers' ship, the _St. Anne_, was
smaller and better built, with a crew of fifteen. The explorers set
sail on the 11th of July. From the first there was trouble with the
crews. Fresh-water _voyageurs_ make bad ocean sailors. Food was
short. The voyage was to be long. It was to unknown waters, famous
for disaster. The sea was boisterous. In the months of June and July,
the North Atlantic is beset with fog and iceberg. The ice sweeps south
in mountainous bergs that have thawed and split before they reach the
temperate zones.[4] On the 30th of July the two ships passed the
Straits of Belle Isle. Fog-banks hung heavy on the blue of the far
watery horizon. Out of the fog, like ghosts in gloom, drifted the
shadowy ice-floes. The coast of Labrador consists of bare, domed,
lonely hills alternated with rock walls rising sheer from the sea as
some giant masonry. Here the rock is buttressed by a sharp angle
knife-edged in a precipice. There, the beetling walls are guarded by
long reefs like the teeth of a saw. Over these reefs, the drifting
tide breaks with multitudinous voices. The French _voyageurs_ had
never known such seafaring. In the wail of the white-foamed reefs,
their superstition heard the shriek of the demons. The explorers had
anchored in one of the sheltered harbors, which the sailors call
"holes-in-the-wall." The crews mutinied. They would go no farther
through ice-drift and fog to an unknown sea. Radisson never waited for
the contagion of fear to work. He ordered anchors up and headed for
open sea. Then he tried to encourage the sailors with promises. They
would not hear him; for the ship's galley was nearly empty of food.
Then Radisson threatened the first mutineer to show rebellion with such
severe punishment as the hard customs of the age permitted. The crew
sul