Beyond Isle Percée there is a bay, called Baye de Chaleurs, [220] extending some eighty leagues west-southwest inland, and some fifteen leagues broad at its entrance. The Canadian savages say that some sixty leagues along the southern shore of the great River of Canada, there is a little river called Mantanne, extending some eighteen leagues inland, at the end of which they carry their canoes about a league by land, and come to the Baye de Chaleurs, [221] whence they go sometimes to Isle Percée. They also go from this bay to Tregate [222] and Misamichy. [223]
Proceeding along this coast, you pass a large number of rivers, and reach a place where there is one called Souricoua, by way of which Sieur Prevert went to explore a copper mine. They go with their canoes up this river for two or three days, when they go overland some two or three leagues to the said mine, which is situated on the seashore southward. At the entrance to the above-mentioned river there is an island [224] about a league out, from which island to Isle Percée is a distance of some sixty or seventy leagues. Then, continuing along this coast, which runs towards the east, you come to a strait about two leagues broad and twenty-five long. [225] On the east side of it is an island named St. Lawrence, [226] on which is Cape Breton, and where a tribe of savages called the Souriquois winter. Passing the strait of the Island of St. Lawrence, and coasting along the shore of La Cadie, you come to a bay [227] on which this copper mine is situated. Advancing still farther, you find a river [228] extending some sixty or eighty leagues inland, and nearly to the Lake of the Iroquois, along which the savages of the coast of La Cadie go to make war upon the latter.
One would accomplish a great good by discovering, on the coast of Florida, some passage running near to the great lake before referred to, where the water is salt; not only on account of the navigation of vessels, which would not then be exposed to so great risks as in going by way of Canada, but also on account of the shortening of the distance by more than three hundred leagues. And it is certain that there are rivers on the coast of Florida, not yet discovered, extending into the interior, where the land is very good and fertile, and containing very good harbors. The country and coast of Florida may have a different temperature and be more productive in fruits and other things than that which I have seen; but there cannot be there any lands more level nor of a better quality than those we have seen.
The savages say that, in this great Baye de Chaleurs, there is a river extending some twenty leagues into the interior, at the extremity of which is a lake [229] some twenty leagues in extent, but with very little water; that it dries up in summer, when they find in it, a foot or foot and a half under ground, a kind of metal resembling the silver which I showed them, and that in another place, near this lake, there is a copper mine.
This is what I learned from these savages.
ENDNOTES:
215. Orignac. Moose.—Vide antea, note 179.
216. Martens, martres. This may include the pine-marten, Mustela martes, and the pecan or fisher, Mustela Canadenfis, both of which were found in large numbers in New France.
217. York River.
218. Molues Bay, Baye des Moluès. Now known as Mal-Bay, from morue, codfish, a corruption from the old orthography molue and baie, codfish bay, the name having been originally applied on account of the excellent fish of the neighborhood. The harbor of Mal-Bay is enclosed between two points, Point Peter on the north, and a high rocky promontory on the south, whose cliffs rise to the height of 666 feet.—Vide Charts of the St. Lawrence by Captain H. W. Bayfield.