"After we had issued from the said town many men and women came to conduct us upon the mountain aforesaid, which was by us named Mont Royal, distant from the said place some quarter of a league; and we, being upon this mountain, had sight and observance of more than thirty leagues round about it. Toward the north of which is a range of mountains which stretches east and west, and toward the south as well; between which mountains the land is the fairest that it may be possible to see, smooth, level, and tillable; and in the middle of the said lands we saw the said river, beyond the place where our boats were left, where there is a waterfall, [15] the most impetuous that it may be possible to see, and which it was impossible for us to pass. And we saw this river as far as we could discern, grand, broad and extensive, which flowed toward the southwest and passed near three fair, round mountains which we saw and estimated that they were about fifteen leagues from us. And we were told and shown by signs by our said three men of the country who had conducted us that there were three such falls of water on the said river like that where our said boats were, but we could not understand what the distance was between the one and the other. Then they showed us by signs that, the said falls being passed, one could navigate more than three moons by the said river; and beyond they showed us that along the said mountains, being toward the north, there is a great stream, which descends from the west like the said river. [16] We reckoned that this is the stream which passed by the realm and province of Saguenay, and, without having made them any request or sign, they took the chain from the captain's whistle, which was of silver, and the haft of a poniard, the which was of copper, yellow like gold, which hung at the side of one of our mariners, and showed that it came from above the said river, and that there were Agojuda, which is to say evil folk, the which are armed even to the fingerhowing us the style of their armor, which is of cords and of wood laced and woven together, giving us to understand that the said Agojuda carried on continual war against one another; but by default of speech we could not learn how far it was to the said country. Our captain showed them some red copper, [17] which they call caignetdaze, pointing them toward the said place, and asking by signs if it came from there, and they began to shake their heads, saying no, and showing that it came from Saguenay, which is to the contrary of the preceding. After which things thus seen and understood, we withdrew to our boats, which was not without being conducted by a great number of the said people, of which part of them, when they saw our folk weary, loaded them upon themselves, as upon horsesd carried them. And we, having arrived at our said boats, made sail to return to our pinnace, for doubt that there might be some hindrance; which departure was not made without great regret of the said people, for as far as they could follow us down the said river they would follow us, and we accomplished so much that we arrived at our said pinnace Monday, the fourth day of October."
The reader must have been struck with the pride of the Hochelagans in conducting their visitors to the mountain as well as at the accurate and picturesque description given by Cartier of the scene that met his delighted gaze. Today the same beautiful sight may be seen by the visitor who makes his way to the "lookout" or the observatory. The landscape at his feet has been covered with a busy city and its suburbs, its manufactories, its public buildings and its homes and villas, but still it appears as if all these were peeping out of a garden. All around the green fields and pleasant meadows are there as of yore. From this height the disfigurements of the lower city are not visible. Montreal has been described as a beautiful lady handsomely gowned, but whose skirt fringes are sadly mud and dust stained.
The river has been spanned by gigantic bridges but the main grand lines of the landscape are those that Cartier gazed upon. There at the south is the great St. Lawrence with its islands on its bosom, now studded with ocean going steamers; beyond there is the great sweep of the St. Lawrence Valley, broken abruptly by the solitary mountain ridges of Montarville, St. Bruno, Belœil, Rougemont, Yamaska, and Mount Johnson—a volcanic sisterhood of which Mount Royal is itself a member—and hemmed in on the horizon by the cloudlike ridges of the Green and Adirondack mountains. Looking to the west are the Lachine Rapids and beyond the Lake St. Louis, and to the north the Rivière des Prairies or the Back River is seen, at the head of which lies the bright surface of the Lake of the Two Mountains. Far away hemming in the horizon on that side runs the hoary Laurentian Range, the oldest hills known to geology. All this apart from the works of civilization Cartier saw from the mountain which has only of late years been planned to intensify its beauty and usefulness. We are now looking forward to the day when that same city around the mountain will also bear the mark of an intelligible plan to intensify the beauty of the city and make it by art, as it is by nature, one of the finest cities in the world, worthy of the jewel standing out—the pride of its city—Mount Royal. Cartier saw the island from the point of view of Greater Mount Royal. In this he resembles those who today see a Greater Montreal. Modern Hochelagans are as proud of their mountain as those of old. D'Arcy McGee imagines Jacques Cartier telling of it on his return to St. Malo:
He told them of the Algonquin braves—the hunters of the wild,
Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child;
Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every living thing
A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping;
Of how they brought their sick and maim'd for him to breathe upon,
And of the wonders wrought for them through the Gospel of St. John.
He told them of the river whose mighty current gave