Читать книгу Old Québec: The Fortress of New France - Gilbert Parker - Страница 6

With the kidnapped Indians for pilots, the three caravels passed by the cañon of the Saguenay, mysterious in its sombre silence. Presently the rocky cliff of Cap Tourmente towered above them, and at length they glided into safe anchorage off the Isle of Bacchus.[2]

To the savage Indians the mighty vessels of France were marvels from another world, and the river was soon swarming with their birch-bark canoes. The story of the two braves who had been carried away to France filled them with grave wonder, and the glittering costumes of Cartier and his officers seemed like the garments of gods. The great chief, Donnacona, waiving regal conventions, clambered upon the deck of the Hermine, where Cartier regaled him with cakes and wine, and with a few beads purchased the amity of his naked followers. Then Cartier set out in a small boat to explore the river.

Above the Island of Bacchus he found himself in a beautiful harbour, on the farther side of which the great river of Canada boomed through a narrow gorge. On the left of the basin the broader channel of the river passed out between the Isle of Bacchus and a range of wooded heights; while on his right, a tower of rock rose majestically from the foam-flecked water. Among the oak and walnut trees that crowned the summit of this natural battlement clustered the bark cabins of Stadaconé, whence, as wide as eye could range, the Lord of Canada held his savage sway.

This Algonquin eyrie seemed only accessible by a long detour through the upland, in which the rocky heights gradually descended to the little river of St. Croix. Thither Cartier and his companions made their way, and then, for the first time, white men gazed upon the green landscape spread beneath that high promontory. On the north and east the blue rim of the world's oldest mountains, then as now, seemed to shut off a mysterious barren land; on the south and west the eye met a fairer prospect, for beyond a sea of verdure the sun's rays glistened upon the distant hills of unknown, unnamed Vermont. Between these half-points of the compass the broad St. Lawrence rolled outward to the sea, and the discovering eye followed its bending course beyond the Isle of Bacchus and past the beetling shoulder of Cap Tourmente. In the summer of 1535 Cartier stood entranced on this magnificent precipice; and to-day the visitor to Quebec gazes from the King's Bastion upon the same panorama, hardly altered by the flight of nearly four centuries.

But Quebec had yet for many years to await its founder. Cartier's mission was one of discovery, not colonisation; and he resolved to push further up the river to Hochelaga, an important village of which the Indians had told him. But Donnacona soon repented of the information he had given, and left nothing undone to turn Cartier from his purpose. As a last resource the magicians of Stadaconé devised a plan to frighten the obstinate Frenchman, but the crude masquerade arranged for that purpose provoked nothing but amusement. A large canoe came floating slowly down the river, and when it drew near the ships the Frenchmen beheld three black devils, garbed in dogskins, and wearing monstrous horns upon their heads. Chanting the hideous monotones of the medicine men, they glided past the fleet, made for the shore, and disappeared in the thicket. Presently, Cartier's two interpreters issued from the wood and declared that the god Coudouagny had sent his three chief priests to warn the French against ascending the river, predicting dire calamities if they should persist. Cartier's reply to the Indian deity was brief and irreverent, and he forthwith made ready to depart.

The Hermine and Emerillon were towed to safer moorings in the quiet St. Croix, and with the pinnace and a small company of men Cartier set out for Hochelaga. The journey was long and toilsome, but by the beginning of October they came to a beautiful island, the site of Montreal. A thousand Indians thronged the shore to welcome the mysterious visitors, presenting gifts of fish and fruit and corn. Then, by a well-worn trail, the savages led the way through the forest to the foot of the mountain, and into the triple palisades of Hochelaga.