nacona, and its naked lords
and princes, was not the metropolis of this forest state, since a town
far greater--so the Indians averred--stood by the brink of the river,
many days' journey above. It was called Hochelaga, and the great river
itself, with a wide reach of adjacent country, had borrowed its name.
Thither, with his two young Indians as guides, Cartier resolved to go;
but misgivings seized the guides as the time drew near, while Donnacona
and his tribesmen, jealous of the plan, set themselves to thwart it. The
Breton captain turned a deaf ear to their dissuasions; on which, failing
to touch his reason, they appealed to his fears.

One morning, as the ships still lay at anchor, the French beheld three
Indian devils descending in a canoe towards them, dressed in black and
white dog-skins, with faces black as ink, and horns long as a man's arm.
Thus arrayed, they drifted by, while the principal fiend, with fixed
eyes, as of one piercing the secrets of futurity, uttered in a loud
voice a long harangue. Then they paddled for the shore; and no sooner
did they reach it than each fell flat like a dead man in the bottom of
the canoe. Aid, however, was at hand; for Donnacona and his tribesmen,
rushing pell-mell from the adjacent woods, raised the swooning
masqueraders, and, with shrill clamors, bore them in their arms within
the sheltering thickets. Here, for a full half-hour, the French could
hear them haranguing in solemn conclave. Then the two young Indians whom
Cartier had brought back from France came out of the bushes, enacting a
pantomime of amazement and terror, clasping their hands, and calling
on Christ and the Virgin; whereupon Cartier, shouting from the vessel,
asked what was the matter. They replied, that the god Coudonagny had
sent to warn the French against all attempts to ascend the great river,
since, should they persist, snows, tempests, and drifting ice would
requite their rashness with inevitable ruin. The French replied that
Coudonagny was a fool; that he could not hurt those who believed in
Christ; and that they might tell this to his three messengers. The
assembled Indians, with little reverence for their deity, pretended
great contentment at this assurance, and danced for joy along the beach.

Cartier now made ready to depart. And, first, he caused the two larger
vessels to be towed for safe harborage within the mouth of the St.
Charles. With the smallest, a galleon of forty tons, and two open bo