On the 8th of August [77] we were enabled by favorable weather to set sail. On the 18th we left Gaspé and Isle Percée. On the 28th we were on the Grand Bank, where the green fishery is carried on, and where we took as many fish as we wanted.
On the 26th of August we arrived at St Malo, where I saw the merchants, to whom I represented the ease of forming a good association in the future, which they resolved to do, as those of Rouen and La Rochelle had done, after recognizing the necessity of the regulations, without which it is impossible to hope for any profit from these lands. May God by His grace cause this undertaking to prosper to His honor and glory, the conversion of these poor benighted ones, and to the welfare and honor of France.
ENDNOTES:
72. By the Ottawa, which they had left a little below Portage du Fort, and not by the same way they had come, through the system of small lakes, of which Muskrat lake is one. Vide Carte de la Nouvelle France, 1632, Vol. I. p. 304.
73. Allumette Island.
74. Near Gould's Landing, below or south of Portage da Fort.—Vide
Champlain's Astrolabe, by A. J. Russell, Montreal, 1879, p. 6.
75. At that time there were to be found in Canada at least four species of
the Cervus Family.
1. The Moose, Cervus alces, or alces Americanus, usually called by the earliest writers orignal or orignac. Vide Vol. I. pp. 264, 265. This is the largest of all the deer family in this or in any other part of the world The average weight has been placed at seven hundred pounds, while extraordinary specimens probably attain twice that weight.
2. The Wapiti, or American Elk, Cervus elaphus, or Canadensis. This is the largest of the known deer except the preceding. The average weight is probably less than six hundred pounds.
3. The Woodland Caribou, Cervus tarandus. It is smaller than the Wapiti. Its range is now mostly in the northern regions of the continent but specimens are still found in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The female is armed with antlers as well as the male, though they are smaller.