n what is now the upper basin of the Mississippi and the
Great Lakes of the west, and which was only separated from the Atlantic
by a narrow strip of land. Now that it was clear that no short passage
to India and China could be found through the Gulf of Mexico, and that
South America was a continental region, the attention of hopeful
geographers and of enterprising sailors and adventurers was directed to
the north, especially as Spain was relatively indifferent to enterprise
in that region. No doubt the French King thought that Cartier would
find his way to the sea of Verrazano, beyond which were probably the
lands visited by Marco Polo, that enterprising merchant of Venice,
whose stories of adventure in India and China read like stories of the
Arabian Nights.

[Illustration: Jacques Cartier]

Jacques Cartier made three voyages to the continent of America between
1534 and 1542, and probably another in 1543. The first voyage, which
took place in 1534 and lasted from April until September, was confined
to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which he {32} explored with some
thoroughness after passing through the strait of Belle Isle, then
called the Gulf of Castles (Chasteaux). The coast of Labrador he
described with perfect accuracy as extremely forbidding, covered with
rocks and moss and "as very likely the land given by God to Cain." In
one of the harbours of the Labrador coast he found a fishing vessel
from La Rochelle, the famous Protestant town of France, on its way to
the port of Brest, then and for some time after a place of call for the
fishermen who were already thronging the Gulf, where walrus, whales,
and cod were so abundant. A good deal of time has been expended by
historical writers on the itinerary of this voyage, the record of which
is somewhat puzzling at times when we come to fix Cartier's names of
places on a modern map. Confining ourselves to those localities of
which there is no doubt, we know he visited and named the isle of Brion
in honour of Admiral Philip de Chabot, Seigneur de Brion, who was a
friend and companion of Francis, and had received from him authority to
send out Cartier's expedition. The Breton saw the great sand-dunes,
and red cliffs of the Magdalens rising from the sea like so many cones.
It was one of these islands he probably called Alezay, though there are
writers who recognise in his description a headland of Prince Edward
Island, but it is not certain that he visited or named any