of the bays
or lagoons of that island which lies so snugly ensconced in the Gulf.
We recognise the bay of Miramichi (St. Lunaire) and the still more
beautiful scenery of the much larger bay of Chaleur (Heat) which he so
{33} named because he entered it on a very hot July day. There he had
pleasant interviews with the natives, who danced and gave other
demonstrations of joy when they received some presents in exchange for
the food they brought to the strangers. These people were probably
either Micmacs or Etchemins, one of the branches of the Algonquin
nation who inhabited a large portion of the Northern continent.
Cartier was enchanted with the natural beauties of "as fine a country
as one would wish to see and live in, level and smooth, warmer than
Spain, where there is abundance of wheat, which has an ear like that of
rye, and again like oats, peas growing as thickly and as large as if
they had been cultivated, red and white barberries, strawberries, red
and white roses, and other flowers of a delightful and sweet perfume,
meadows of rich grasses, and rivers full of salmon"--a perfectly true
description of the beautiful country watered by the Restigouche and
Metapedia rivers. Cartier also visited the picturesque bay of Gaspe,
where the scenery is grand but the trees smaller and the land less
fertile than in the neighbourhood of Chaleur and its rivers. On a
point at the entrance of the harbour of Gaspe--an Indian name having
probably reference to a split rock, which has long been a curiosity of
the coast--Cartier raised a cross, thirty feet in height, on the middle
of which there was a shield or escutcheon with three fleurs-de-lis, and
the inscription, _Vive le Roy de France_. Cartier then returned to
France by way of the strait of Belle Isle, without having seen the
great river to whose mouth he had been so close {34} when he stood on
the hills of Gaspe or passed around the shores of desolate Anticosti.

Cartier brought back with him two sons of the Indian chief of a tribe
he saw at Gaspe, who seem to have belonged to the Huron-Iroquois nation
he met at Stadacona, now Quebec, when he made the second voyage which I
have to describe. The accounts he gave of the country on the Gulf
appear to have been sufficiently encouraging to keep up the interest of
the King and the Admiral of France in the scheme of discovery which
they had planned. In this second voyage of 1535-36, the most memorable
of all he made to Americ