The great River St. Lawrence, which serves to drain the larger part of the waters of Northern New York into the ocean, was discovered and first explored by Jacques Cartier, an eminent mariner of St. Malo.

St. Malo is a quaint medieval seaport town of the ancient province of Brittany, on the northern coast of France. The city is built on a huge rock that seems to rise like a wall out of the sea, it being separated from the mainland by a salt marsh, which is covered by the waters at high tide. St. Malo has long being celebrated as the nursery of a race of daring and hardy navigators, and among the most famous of them all is Jacques Cartier. He was born at St. Malo in the year 1494, and passed his boyhood there in watching the waves come in from the awful unknown Atlantic, whose mysteries had then but just been solved by Columbus, and of which he was destined to become one of the most eminent explorers.

In the year 1535, Cartier was sent on a voyage to the New World by Francis I, King of France, at the instigation of Philippe de Chabot, his Grand Admiral, in quest of gold and empire. The little fleet with which Cartier sailed

consisted of three ships only, ranging from forty to one hundred and twenty tons burden. This fleet was under the command of Cartier, who was styled the "Captain and Pilot of the King." In his ship's company were several of the young nobility of France, among whom were Claudias de Ponte Briand, cup-bearer to the Lord Dauphin, Charles de Pomeraces, John Powlet and other gentlemen.

Before venturing upon their long and perilous voyages to the dreary, cheerless solitudes of an almost unknown and unexplored ocean, the daring but devout navigators of those days were accustomed to attend upon the solemn offices of religion as if they were departing to

"The undiscovered country, from whose bourne

No traveler returns."

So, just before setting sail, this company of adventurers all went, on Whitsunday, in solemn procession to the Cathedral Church of St. Malo, where each was absolved and received the sacrament. Then, all entering the choir of the church, they presented themselves in a body to the Lord Bishop of St. Malo, and received his blessing.

They embarked on the 19th of May, and, after a stormy passage, arrived off the coast of Newfoundland on the 7th of July. On the 10th day of August in that year, which day was the festival of Saint Lawrence, they discovered and entered the broad bay which forms the mouth of the great river, and named it in honor of the saint.

Proceeding on their voyage up the wild stream, they passed the dark gorge of the Saguenai, and arrived at the island of Orleans, that lies a short distance below the city of Quebec. On account of the abundance of wild grapes found upon this island, which hung in clusters from all the

trees along its shores, Cartier named it the Isle of Bacchus. Continuing his voyage, Cartier soon reached the narrows in the river opposite the rocky cliffs of Quebec. This stronghold was then occupied by a little cluster of Indian wigwams, and was called by the savages Sta-da-co-ne. Its chief, whose name was Don-na-co-na, met Cartier and his strange band at the landing, made a speech to them, and gave them some bread and some wine pressed from the wild grapes that grew so abundantly along the shores of the river and upon all its islands.

These Indians told Cartier that many days' journey up the river, there was another Indian town that gave its name to the river and to the country around it. Taking on board some Indian guides, Cartier proceeded up the river in quest of this wonderful city of the great forest state. Upon arriving at some dangerous rapids in the now narrowing river, Cartier left his ships, and launching his small boats, went up the stream with but two white companions and his Indian guides. In a few days they led him to the spot where now stands the beautiful city of Montreal.

On the island of Montreal Cartier found an old palisaded Indian town, containing many wigwams, built long and narrow after the fashion of the Iroquois. In this village were more than a thousand savage inhabitants of Iroquois lineage. It was the famous Indian Ho-che-la-ga, the capital of the great forest state that lay along the St. Lawrence above the Ottawa. Like Sta-da-co-ne at Quebec, it was one of the centers of Indian population on the great river.

Cartier landed at Ho-che-la-ga on the second day of October, amid the crimson and golden hues of the lovely Cana

dian autumn.

So glorious, so wild, so fair, so savage a scene these wondering mariners of the Old World had never seen before.

When Cartier and his two bearded white men, clad in glittering armor and gorgeous attire, landed at the Indian village Ho-che-la-ga, on the wild island of Montreal, the half-nude savages crowded around them in speechless wonder, regarding them more as demi-gods than men. They even brought their chief, whose name was Ag-ou-han-na, who “was full of palsy" says an old narrative, "and his members shrunk together," and who was clad in rich furs and wore upon his head a wreath or crown of red feathers, and laid him upon a mat before the captain that he might give the useless limbs a healing touch-such was their simple faith in the power of the strange pale faces. "Then did Ag-ou-han-na," continues the old chronicler, "take the wreath or crown he had about his head, and gave it unto our captain. That done, they brought before him divers diseased men, some blind, some cripple, some lame and impotent, and some so old that the hair of their eye-lids came down and covered their cheeks, and laid them all along before our captain, to the end that they might of him be touched, for it seemed unto them that God was descended and come down to heal them."*

Then the Indians led Cartier to the top of the mountain at whose foot their village nestled. Planting a large cross of cedar wood upon the summit of the mountain, Cartier solemnly took possession of the great forest state of Ho-chela-ga in the name of the French king, and named the * Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. xii, p. 653.

mountain on which he stood Mount Royal, from whence comes the modern Montreal.

On the 5th of October, Cartier left Ho-che-la-ga, and regaining his ships, passed a long and gloomy winter in that part of the river called Lake St. Peters.

In the spring Cartier returned to France. In 1541 he made another voyage to Ho-che-la-ga. After his return to his native city of St. Malo from his last voyage to the New World his name passes out of history. It is supposed that he lived in retirement and died at a good old age.

When Champlain, upon his first voyage in 1603, sixtyeight years after Cartier's visit, landed upon the still wild. and savage island of Montreal, scarcely a vestige of Ho-chela-ga, the ancient Indian metropolis on the great river, remained to be seen. All its savage glory had departed forever. Its Iroquois race of house-builders had been driven to their new hunting-grounds in the rich valleys of Central New York. Champlain found the site of the village occupied only by a few families of a roving tribe of Algonquin lineage, who lived in some temporary huts built of the decaying remnants of the ancient village. Such was the fate of the old forest state Ho-che-la-ga, and its metropolis at Montreal. But its people found a more congenial home among their sister Iroquois tribes of the Five Nations, with whom doubtless they united in the great confederacy.

II.

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN.

Samuel de Champlain, the discoverer of the beautiful lake of Northern New York that bears his name, was the