Читать книгу The White and the Gold - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 21

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Taking none of the unfriendly natives with him as guides, Cartier and fifty of his men went on in the pinnace. After nine days of easy sailing they reached what is now the island of Montreal. Here they were greeted by a thousand natives with demonstrations of wonder and delight. If Cartier’s description is to be accepted, Hochelaga itself was the most formidable settlement in the whole of North America. It stood in the midst of broad cleared fields, at the base of a mountain which he proceeded to christen Mount Royal. The city was round and “compassed about with timber, with three courses of rampires, one within another, framed like sharp spikes.” The city had one entrance only, which was kept shut and well guarded with stakes and bars. Over the entrance, and in many places along the palisades as well, there was a platform for use in defending against attacks. The platform was full of stones to be dropped on the heads of besiegers.

Inside the walls were about fifty houses, built all of wood. Some of them were fifty paces long and twelve or fifteen broad. They were covered over with bark “very finely and cunningly joined together.” Each of these houses had a center court for the making of fires and they were cut up into many rooms, lodgings, and chambers.

The people of Hochelaga gathered in a central court to welcome the white men officially. Their chief, a veteran so afflicted with palsy that his legs had lost all power of movement, was carried in on the shoulders of ten braves and deposited on a stag’s skin. The old man begged the white chief to cure him, and Cartier responded by rubbing the afflicted limbs.

The most interesting information gleaned at Hochelaga, by means of gestures, had to do with the nature of the country. The existence of the Kingdom of Saguenay was confirmed and was confidently asserted to lie along the powerful Ottawa, which emptied into the St. Lawrence at one end of the island on which Hochelaga stood. Pointing to the silver chain of Cartier’s whistle and the handle of a dagger of copper-gilt dangling at the belt of a sailor, one of the natives made it clear that these metals were to be found in the country through which the Ottawa ran. A word of warning accompanied this information. The land where the silver and gold would be found belonged to Agojudas, who were cruel and wicked people. It was explained also that the country of Canada extended much farther to the west, that it was enclosed by immense lakes and guarded by waterfalls of great height.

In the minds of recent historians some doubts have been lodged as to the accuracy of Cartier’s description of Hochelaga. They point out that he returned there on his third voyage but made no mention of the place. Furthermore, Samuel de Champlain, who would visit the island nearly a century later, found nothing there at all, nor has anyone since discovered traces of the existence of such a large community.

As a result, there is a tendency to wonder if the report of the sea captain of St. Malo was exaggerated for a purpose. Could it be that this section of his report was designed to encourage hopes in King Francis of great wealth to be found in the New World? Was the emphasis laid on the legend of the Kingdom of Saguenay a part of the same conspiracy?

A settlement of some importance existed there without a doubt. Cartier’s description might very well have been applied to the Iroquois villages which Champlain saw later in the country of the Finger Lakes in northern New York. It could not, therefore, be sheer fabrication. It may have been that a hand other than Cartier’s was responsible for certain interpolations which colored the version far beyond the limits of the truth. The mariner of St. Malo was a man of honest purpose, lacking the guile to invent such stories. The fact that in this part of the report there are faulty nautical references which a skilled and meticulous navigator would not use may be adduced as proof that some changes were made after the document was out of his hands. It may be pointed out further that Cartier was dead before the documents were published.

One thing is certain: if Hochelaga existed as set forth in the Cartier report, it soon thereafter vanished. This is understandable in the light of what Champlain found later. There was no trace of either Stadacona or Hochelaga when he followed in the footsteps of Cartier. The Indian tribes which the latter had seen had disappeared from the face of the earth, being replaced by entirely new stock.

Whether or not the Indians living under the shelter of Mount Royal ever built themselves such elaborate defenses and lived under bark roofs ingeniously contrived, there can be no doubt that they were a superior race. They were tall and vigorous, with strongly aquiline features and skins the hue of copper. Cartier speaks with wonder of their strength and powers of endurance. They had considerable skill at agriculture, and the cleared space about the settlement was filled with ripening corn and other cereals. It was indeed a noble prospect spread out before the eyes of the one and fifty brave Frenchmen. This was the time of harvest and the trees were loaded with fruit. A pleasant haze of heat still lay over the land, but the russets and reds and yellows of autumn were already showing themselves. The deep, invigorating waters of the river raced by the shore with the promise of plentiful fish.

Here was a land of plenty, and a better and truer picture to take back to the King of France, grasping though he might be, than stories of a fabulous kingdom where gold could be picked up on the streets and the natives strutted with rubies in their neckbands. If Francis, the great sophisticate, desired an empire across the seas, here it was: a land where men could live and raise fat crops and, in the course of time, increase and multiply, not a run-down and debased civilization which could be squeezed of its wealth and then abandoned.