ducks, thrushes, black-birds, turtles, wild-pigeons, linnets,
finches, redbreasts, stares, nightingales, and many others. No part of
the world was ever seen producing greater numbers and varieties of fish,
both these belonging to the sea and to fresh water, according to their
seasons. Among these many whales, porpoises, sea-horses, and a kind
named Adhothuis which we had never seen or heard of before. These are as
large as porpoises, as white as snow, having bodies and heads resembling
grey-hounds, and are accustomed to reside between the fresh and salt
water about the mouth of the Saguenay river.

[Footnote 53: Modern navigators prefer the north side, all the way from
the Seven Islands to the Isle of Orleans, where they take the southern
channel to Point Levi, at which place they enter the bason of
Quebec.--E.]

[Footnote 54: The distance does not exceed 135 marine leagues.--E.]

[Footnote 55: The Isle of Orleans, the only one which can be here
alluded to, is only 6 1/2 marine leagues in length; Cartier seems to use
the small French league of about 12 furlongs, and even not to have been
very accurate in its application.--E.]

After our return from Hochelega or the Isle of Montreal, we dwelt and
trafficked in great cordiality with the natives near our ships, except
that we sometimes had strife with certain ill-disposed people, much to
the displeasure of the rest. From Donnacona and others, we learnt that
the river of Saguenay is capable of being navigated by small boats for a
distance of eight or nine days journey; but that the most convenient and
best way to the country of Saguenay is to ascend the great river in the
first place to Hochelega, and thence by another river which comes from
Saguenay, to which it is a navigation of a month[56]. The natives
likewise gave us to understand that the people in that country of
Saguenay were very honest, were clothed in a similar manner to us
Frenchmen, had many populous towns, and had great store of gold and red
copper. They added, that beyond the river of Hochelega and Saguenay,
there is an island environed by that and other rivers, beyond which and
Saguenay the river leads into three or four great lakes, and a great
inland sea of fresh water, the end whereof had never been found, as they
had heard from the natives of Saguenay, having never been there
themselves. They told us likewise that, at the place where we left our
pinnace when we went to Hochelega or Montreal, there i