ntry into Indian villages, eat boiled dog with pretended
relish, sit around the council-fire, smoke the Indian's pipe, and end
by dancing the war-dance as furiously as the red men.

{53}

Chapter V

JACQUES CARTIER, THE DISCOVERER OF CANADA

Jacques Cartier enters the St. Lawrence.--He imagines that he has found
a Sea-route to the Indies.--The Importance of such a Route.--His
Exploration of the St. Lawrence.--A Bitter Winter.--Cartier's Treachery
and its Punishment.--Roberval's Disastrous Expedition.

How early the first Frenchmen visited America it is hard to say. It
has been claimed, on somewhat doubtful evidence, that the Basques, that
ancient people inhabiting the Pyrenees and the shores of the Bay of
Biscay, fished on the coast of Newfoundland before John Cabot saw it
and received credit as the discoverer of this continent. So much, at
any rate, is certain, that within a very few years after Cabot's voyage
a considerable fleet of French, Spanish, and Portuguese vessels was
engaged in the Newfoundland fishery. Later the English took part in
it. The French soon gained the lead in this industry {54} and thus
became the predominant power on the northern shores of America, just as
the Spaniards were on the southern. The formal claim of France to the
territory which she afterward called New France was based on the
explorations of her adventurous voyagers.

Jacques Cartier was a daring mariner, belonging to that bold Breton
race whose fishermen had for many years frequented the Newfoundland
Banks for codfish. In 1534 he sailed to push his exploration farther
than had as yet been attempted. His inspiration was the old dream of
all the early navigators, the hope of finding a highway to China.
Needless to say, he did not find it, but he found something well worth
the finding--Canada.

Sailing through the Straits of Belle Isle, he saw an inland sea opening
before him. Passing Anticosti Island, he landed on the shore of a fine
bay. It was the month of July, and it chanced to be an oppressive day.
"The country is hotter than the country of Spain," he wrote in his
journal. Therefore he gave the bay its name, the Bay of Chaleur
(heat). The beauty and fertility of the country, the abundance of
berries, and "the many goodly meadows, full of {55} grass, and lakes
wherein great pleanty of salmons be," made a great impression on him.

On the shore were more than three hundred men, women, and children.
"The