JAMES CARTIER.
AN EARLY TRAVELLER IN AMERICA.
James, or as he is commonly called, Jacques Cartier, was the first who explored the shores of Canada to any extent, and the first to discover the existence of that great river, communicating between the Atlantic Ocean and the great North American lakes, the St. Lawrence. The Indians called the river Hochelega, and told him that they had never heard of any one who had reached its source.
Cartier sailed up the river, and anchored his vessels near the island of Orleans, below the place where Quebec now stands. It was in the summer of 1535, when he sailed up the river, and he found Orleans island nearly covered with loaded grape-vines, from which circumstance, as well as from the beauty, variety, and luxuriance of its vegetation, he named it the Island of Bacchus.
All the early navigators to this continent were in search of a north-west passage to India, by which they thought they might reach the East Indian islands by a shorter voyage than that in use. They were formerly obliged to sail along the coast of Africa, and around the Cape of Good Hope, when they had still another, the Indian Ocean, to cross before they reached China. This was a very long and a very dangerous voyage, and they wished for a shorter one; and the learned men of those days were of opinion that there existed a passage somewhere in North America, which joined the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together.
When Henry Hudson discovered the bay which bears his name, he thought that he had found the desired object, and Cartier indulged the same hopes, when sailing up the noble river Hochelega, which he called the St. Lawrence, because he had discovered it on the day of the festival in honour of the saint of that name, the 10th day of August. On the 15th, he discovered the island now known by the name of Anticosti. At Bacchus island he was visited by the principal chief of the neighbouring tribes, whose name was Donnacona. The chief and his attendants were very hospitable to the navigators, and in a solemn assembly he welcomed them, in the name of five hundred of his warriors, to the shores of the Hochelega. Donnacona had his residence and chief town at Stadacona, which occupied part of the place where Quebec now stands.