CHAPTER XXV.
EARLY DISCOVERERS.
The progress of the little steamer was necessarily much slower now than when the boys had come down the river, moving as she was against the strong current. There was, however, too much of inspiration in the experience to make the young campers feel impatient, and as there were but few passengers besides themselves on board, they took their chairs to a sheltered spot on the upper deck, and the sounds of their merry laughter and shouts soon resounded over the river. They cheered the passing boats, and gave their school cry whenever they approached a camp.
After a time even these measures became tame and failed to satisfy the boys, and Bob, quick to seize his opportunity, said, “I’ll now resume my lectures, with your kind permission.”
“I don’t think our permission will have much to do with it,” said Ben. “You’ll go on just the same.”
Bob scowled, but as he knew the boys really were interested, and wanted to learn something more about the early discoverers, he began:—
“When Cartier returned to France after his second voyage, the hardships and losses he had to report were not, of course, very encouraging to the Frenchmen, who wanted him to find a country where the streets of the cities were all paved with gold. But Francis de La Roque, the Lord of Roberval in Picardy, had himself appointed viceroy and lieutenant-general of the new territory, Cartier still being called captain-general and chief pilot of the king’s ships.
“Five vessels were then fitted out, and in May, 1541, Cartier started with two of them and was soon afterward joined by the others. Then all five started across the ocean blue, and three months later landed at Sainte Croix. He began to cruise about, and finally sent two of his ships back to France, though he kept the other three at the mouth of the Red River.
“Cartier then went up to Hochelaga, hoping to be able to come farther up the river, but the winter was a terrible one, and his men were so discouraged that in the spring, his provisions being exhausted, and the Indians beginning to cut up, he sailed away for France. On the way over he met Roberval, who ordered him to go back again; but Cartier did not see it in that light, so he kept on, and finally got back to France, where he lived and died in peace.”