The Map
CANADIAN SCENERY.
The name of this magnificent link in the colonial chain with which England has encircled the world, is a matter of considerable doubt.[[1]] It has been dignified with some research and ingenuity, however, and we can record the result, leaving the choice of solutions to the reader. Hennepin thus unfolds his idea of its origin:—“Les Espagnols ont fait la première découverte du Canada. Ayant mis pied à terre, ils n’y trouvèrent rien de considérable. Cette raison les obligea d’abandonner ce pays, qu’ils appellèrent il Capo di Nada, c’est-à-dire le Cap de Rien (or Cape Nothing), d’où est venu par corruption le nom de Canada.”
La Potherie corroborates this statement, with this difference, that he attributes the Spaniards’ idea of the nothingness of the country to its being covered with snow. He says also that the Indians, on the arrival of Jacques Cartier, frequently pronounced these words: Aca nada (nothing here), which is a very plausible derivation. The words were taught them probably by the Spaniards, who had visited the Baie des Chaleurs, and pronounced them because they found no gold or silver mines.
Our own opinion, however, is, that the word Canada is derived from the word Kanata, which, in Iroquois, signifies a collection of huts. By so unpromising an appellation, is known a province containing upwards of 350,000 square miles, which offer to the agriculturist almost measureless fields of pasture and tillage—to the manufacturer, an incalculable extension of the home market for the disposal of his wares—to the merchant and mariner, vast marts for profitable traffic in every product with which nature has bounteously enriched the earth—to the capitalist, an almost interminable extent for the profitable investment of funds—and to the industrious, skilful, and intelligent emigrant, a field where every species of mental ingenuity and manual labour may be developed and brought into action with advantage to the whole family of man.
The first query that occurs to the reader’s mind in taking up any book on Canada, is, What was the real character of the aboriginal inhabitant, and how far and in what manner has he receded before the advancing step of the white man? Before touching on the history of the civilization of the country, the condition of its savage owners should be well understood.