an waters, he had the assistance of a little
fleet of three vessels, the _Grande Hermine_, the _Petite Hermine_, and
the _Emerillon_, of which the first had a burden of one hundred and
twenty tons--quite a large ship compared with the two little vessels of
sixty tons each that were given him for his first venture. This fleet,
which gave Canada to France for two centuries and a quarter, reached
Newfoundland during the early part of July, passed through the strait
of Belle Isle, and on the 10th of August, came to a little bay or
harbour on the northern shore of the present province of Quebec, but
then known as Labrador, to which he gave the name of St. Laurent, in
honour of the saint whose festival happened to fall on the day of his
arrival. This bay is now generally believed to be the port of Sainte
Genevieve, and the name which Cartier gave it was gradually transferred
in the course of a century to the whole gulf as well as to the river
itself which the Breton sailor was the first to place {35} definitely
on the maps of those days of scanty geographical knowledge. Cartier
led his vessels through the passage between the northern shores of
Canada and the island of Anticosti, which he called Assomption,
although it has long since resumed its old name, which has been
gradually changed from the original Natiscotic to Naticousti, and
finally to Anticosti. When the adventurers came near the neighbourhood
of Trinity River on the north side of the Gulf, the two Gaspe Indians
who were on board Cartier's vessel, the Grande Hermine, told them that
they were now at the entrance of the kingdom of Saguenay where red
copper was to be found, and that away beyond flowed the great river of
Hochelaga and Canada. This Saguenay kingdom extended on the north side
of the river as far as the neighbourhood of the present well-known Isle
aux Coudres; then came the kingdom of Canada, stretching as far as the
island of Montreal, where the King of Hochelaga exercised dominion over
a number of tribes in the adjacent country.

Cartier passed the gloomy portals of the Saguenay, and stopped for a
day or two at Isle aux Coudres (Coudrieres) over fifty miles below
Quebec, where mass was celebrated for the first time on the river of
Canada, and which he named on account of the hazel-nuts he found "as
large and better tasting than those of France, though a little harder."
Cartier then followed the north shore, with its lofty, well-wooded
mountains stre