[171] Hakluyt says that the Indian name of the island (vol. iii. p. 214) was Natiscotec; while Jean Allefonsce invariably makes the mistake of calling it Ascension Island.
[172] In 1642 the Sieur Maissonneuve selected the site for Montreal; see Champlain’s Œuvres, 1870 (Des Savvages), ii. 39. On Norumbega, see the present work, Vol. III. p. 169. On Hochelaga, also, see Professor Dawson’s Fossil Men and their Modern Representatives: an Attempt to Illustrate the Characters and Conditions of Prehistoric Men in Europe by those of the American Race. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1880, chaps. ii. and iii. By his excavations, Dr. Dawson has brought to light relics of the Hochelagans, whose ethnic relations he has studied, finding evidence which convinces him that they were representatives of a decaying nation to which the Eries and others belonged, and that originally they were connected with the Mound-Builders. He uses their history in combating some views entertained respecting the antiquity of the Stone Age.
[173] Professor Dawson, speaking of the account in the narrative, which says “that the most precious thing that they have in all the world they call esurguy, which is white, and which they take in the said river in cornifats,” explains that esurguy is “probably a vulgar local name for some shell supposed to resemble that of which these Indians made their wampum. I would suggest that it may be derived from cornet, which is used by old French writers as a name for the shells of the genus Voluta, and is also a technical term in conchology. In this case it is likely that the esurguy was made of the shells of some species of Melania or Paludina, just as the Indians on the coast used for beads and ornaments the shells of Purpura lapillus and of Dentalium, etc. It is just possible that Cartier may have misunderstood the mode of procuring these shells, and that the [his] statement may refer to some practice of making criminals and prisoners dive for them in the deeper parts of the river.”—Fossil Men, etc., p. 32, n.
[174] When Champlain was at Quebec he thought that he identified the site of Cartier’s fort, where he found hewn timber decayed and several cannon balls near the St. Charles and the Lairet. Œuvres, iii. 155. [Lescarbot and Sagard also mention the remains. Faillon (Histoire de la Colonie Française, i. 496) discusses the site of Cartier’s wintering-place. Lemoine (Picturesque Quebec, p. 484) speaks of the remains of one of Cartier’s vessels being discovered in 1843, some parts of which were carried to St. Malo.—Ed.]
[175] The Voyage of Verrazzano, p. 163, and Verrazano the Explorer, p. 25.
[176] Buckingham Smith’s Coleccion de varios documentos, Londres, 1851, p. 107; also Harrisse, Jean et Sébastien Cabot, p. 146.
[177] Possibly he had only three; see Coleccion, etc., p. 107. That he had five is the statement of Hakluyt. The Spaniards understood that Cartier had thirteen ships, Smith’s Coleccion, p. 107. Hakluyt is perhaps in error where he asserts that it was agreed to build five ships. Two of the ships actually sailing with this Expedition were the “Great Hermina” and the “Emerilon.”
[178] [In the Archives of St. Malo (1538) is a record of the baptism of three savages brought there by Cartier. Massachusetts Archives, Documents collected in France, i. 367. Faillon (Histoire de la Colonie Française, i. 524) believes that the Indians found on the St. Lawrence were Iroquois, who were succeeded in Champlain’s time by Algonquins. Bonnetty in the Annales de philosophie Chrétienne, September, 1869, has discussed the question: “Quels étaient les sauvages que rencontra Cartier sur les rives du Saint-Laurent.” Captain J. Carleill, in his undated tract (of about 1583) called Discourse upon the Entended Voyage to ... America (Carter-Brown Catalogue, vol. i. no. 350), refers to Cartier’s abduction of the Indians as putting “the whole countrey people into such dislike with the Frenche, as neuer since they would admit any conversation or familiaritie with them, until of late yeares.”—Ed.]
[179] It might indeed be supposed that Roberval, instead of reaching Canada in the autumn of 1541, wintered on the Atlantic coast, and thus met Cartier at Newfoundland in 1542. Indeed, Sir William Alexander says, in his Encouragement to Colonies (p. 15), that Roberval lived “one winter at Cape Breton;” but for the statement he gives no authority, while his style is loose, and by Cape Breton he probably meant Canada, since Roberval would have sailed direct from Cape Breton to the St. Lawrence, instead of circumnavigating Newfoundland.
[180] Hakluyt, in his translation of Allefonsce (iii. 242), reads: “Fort of France Roy, built in August and September, 1542.” The manuscript of Allefonsce, however, does not give the year, though the fact is stated. Hakluyt may have put in the date.