ance were marvels from
another world, and the river was soon swarming with their birch-bark
canoes. The story of the two braves who had been carried away to
France filled them with grave wonder, and the glittering costumes of
Cartier and his officers seemed like the garments of gods. The great
chief, Donnacona, waiving regal conventions, clambered upon the deck
of the _Hermine_, where Cartier regaled him with cakes and wine, and
with a few beads purchased the amity of his naked followers. Then
Cartier set out in a small boat to explore the river.

Above the Island of Bacchus he found himself in a beautiful harbour,
on the farther side of which the great river of Canada boomed through
a narrow gorge. On the left of the basin the broader channel of the
river passed out between the Isle of Bacchus and a range of wooded
heights; while on his right, a tower of rock rose majestically from
the foam-flecked water. Among the oak and walnut trees that crowned
the summit of this natural battlement clustered the bark cabins of
Stadacone, whence, as wide as eye could range, the Lord of Canada held
his savage sway.

[Footnote 2: Now the Island of Orleans.]

This Algonquin eyrie seemed only accessible by a long detour through
the upland, in which the rocky heights gradually descended to the
little river of St. Croix. Thither Cartier and his companions made
their way, and then, for the first time, white men gazed upon the
green landscape spread beneath that high promontory. On the north and
east the blue rim of the world's oldest mountains, then as now, seemed
to shut off a mysterious barren land; on the south and west the eye
met a fairer prospect, for beyond a sea of verdure the sun's rays
glistened upon the distant hills of unknown, unnamed Vermont. Between
these half-points of the compass the broad St. Lawrence rolled outward
to the sea, and the discovering eye followed its bending course beyond
the Isle of Bacchus and past the beetling shoulder of Cap Tourmente.
In the summer of 1535 Cartier stood entranced on this magnificent
precipice; and to-day the visitor to Quebec gazes from the King's
Bastion upon the same panorama, hardly altered by the flight of nearly
four centuries.

But Quebec had yet for many years to await its founder. Cartier's
mission was one of discovery, not colonisation; and he resolved to
push further up the river to Hochelaga, an important village of which
the Indians had told him. But Donnacona soon repe