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however, still persisted in their intention, the Indians endeavoured to shake their resolution by a stratagem which strongly portrays their superstition and simplicity. They dressed up three men like devils, in black and white dog-skins, with their faces blackened, and horns on their heads a yard in length. These men were placed in a canoe, in such a situation as to be carried near the ships by the flowing of the tide. The Indians lay in the woods, watching their appearance. When the canoe approached the ships, one of the three devils stood up, and made a long harangue; and as soon as they reached the land, they fell down as if dead, and were carried off by the Indians into concealment. Some of the Indians immediately came on board to Cartier, and, feigning the greatest consternation, explained to him the meaning of what had been seen. Their god Cudruaigny, they said, had spoken in Hochelega, and had sent these three demons to declare that there was so much ice and snow in that country, that whoever ventured there would surely perish. Undismayed by their predictions, the Frenchman made an excursion up the river, and was charmed as he advanced by the richness and majesty of the landscapes that opened before him. Whenever he approached the shore he met with the kindest and most hospitable treatment from the natives. For nine days he sailed up this great river; and found the country the whole way as fertile, as well wooded, and as agreeable, as could be desired. At length he came to a wide lake or enlargement of the river (now called St. Peter's Lake), twelve leagues long and six in breadth, which he called the Lake of Angoulême. Beyond this he found some difficulty in navigating the river, from its rapids, and the number of its channels: four days' sail, however, now brought him to Hochelega, forty-five leagues above the Lake of Angoulême. The city of Hochelega, as he calls the Indian hamlet, was six miles from the river side, and the road to it was as well beaten and as well frequented as any in France; leading through a country planted with noble oaks, the ground being strewed over with

fine acorns. Close to the Indian village was a fertile and cultivated hill, to which Cartier gave the name of Montreal, and which subsequently became the site of one of the principal Canadian colonies. From his description of the dwellings of the Indians and of their rural industry, it may be concluded that those simple races have wofully degenerated since their acquaintance with Europeans. In speaking of their ornaments, he relates a circumstance which has hitherto been thought inexplicable, and too hastily censured as a ridiculous story. "That which they hold," he says, "in highest estimation among all their possessions is a substance which they call esurgny or cornibotz, which is as white as snow, and is procured in the following manner:-When any one is adjudged to death for a crime, or when they have taken any of their enemies in war, having first slain the person, they make deep gashes in the flanks, shoulders, and thighs of the dead body, which is then sunk to the bottom of the river in the place where the esurgny abounds. After remaining there ten or twelve hours, the body is drawn up, and the esurgny or cornibotz is found in the gashes. Of this they make beads, which they wear about their necks as we do chains of gold and silver, accounting it their most precious riches." In this account we find perhaps the earliest allusion to that peculiar substance called adipocire or factitious spermaceti, of which a manufactory was established a few years back in the neighbourhood of Bristol. Cartier or his Indian informants erred only in supposing that the esurgny or white substance was not formed by the subaqueous decomposition of the animal matter, but collected by it from natural depositions at the bottom of the river. In Cartier's narrative also we find the first description of tobacco, with a ludicrous caricature of the mode of using it. "The Indians," he says, "have a certain herb, of which they lay up a store every summer, having first dried it in the sun. It is used only by the men, who always carry some of it in a small bag hanging from their necks, in which they keep also a hollow piece

When they use this herb,

of stone or wood like a pipe. they bruise it to powder, put it into one end of the pipe,and laying a small piece of burning coal upon it, they suck at the other end so long that they fill their bodies full of smoke till it comes out of their mouth and nostrils as from the chimney of a house. They allege that this practice is conducive to health: we tried to use this smoke, but on putting it into our mouths it seemed as hot as pepper."

From the summit of Montreal the eye could trace the river about fifteen leagues, till it terminated in a broad and glittering rapid. The natives were acquainted with three more such falls; and said, that after passing these, a man might sail for three months up the river without interruption. They intimated that gold and silver abounded toward the south, and copper in the opposite direction. They spoke also of three or four great lakes, and an inland sea of fresh water, the end of which had never been explored. But the Indians of Hochelega were an agricultural tribe, who wandered but a short distance from their habitations, and chiefly owed their geographical knowledge to the hunting tribes of Saguenay in the north. The chief Donnacona, who had travelled much when he was young, had visited the country of Saguenay, which he described as rich and abundant. He had travelled among the Picquemians, who were probably the Picquagamies dwelling round Lake St. John, at the head of the Saguenay river. He also said that there were white men in the country of Saguenay, whose dresses were of woollen cloth like that worn by the French. Those who are unwilling to believe that this relation was an invention of the old chief (and it has not much the internal character of fiction) may be inclined to suppose that the Cortereals, with their companions, had fallen into the hands of the Indians of Labrador, by whom they were conducted into the interior.

Cartier and his companions wintered in the St. Lawrence, opposite the Indian town of Stadacona, from November till March. The ship was enclosed by ice

two fathoms in thickness, and the snow lay above four feet deep on the decks; liquors were all frozen; and, to complete the misery of the crew, the scurvy, a disease with which they were wholly unacquainted, broke out among them. There were not above three sound men in the whole company. Those who died were buried in the snow, the survivors wanting strength to dig a grave for them in the earth. An Indian at length pointed out a tree, with the leaves and bark of which they made a decoction, by drinking which they were soon completely cured. The ice being at length melted, Cartier put to sea, and arrived at St. Malo in July, 1536.

In consequence of the favourable account which Cartier gave of the country which he had surveyed, of its magnificent river, its apparent fertility, and the tractability of its inhabitants, an expedition was undertaken to settle and cultivate it. A gentleman named Roberval obtained a patent, and proceeded, in 1540, to plant a colony in Canada; but no success attended this and other subsequent weak attempts. It was not till 1608 that Quebec was founded; and already, in 1629, the English, who were now rapidly acquiring strength in Virginia, threatened the existence of the new settlement. In 1609, the Dutch planted their first colony in the Hudson.

CHAP. XV.

ESTABLISHMENTS IN AFRICA.

EXCLUSIVE TRADE OF PORTUGAL ΤΟ AFRICA. VOYAGES OF WINDHAM AND LOK. SUCCESS OF LOK.-ADVENTURES OF ANDREW BATTEL.-TAKEN PRISONER BY THE PORTUGUESE.CARRIED TO ANGOLA. TRADES FOR THE GOVERNOR. ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE. DETECTED AND IMPRISONED. SENT TO MASSINGANO. ESCAPES. HIS JOURNEY. - RETAKEN. SENT TO ELAMBO.WOUNDED IN BATTLE. THE PORTUGUESE TRADE WITH THE GIAGAS. FOLLOW THEM UP THE COUNTRY. BATTEL LEFT AS A HOSTAGE.THREATENED WITH DEATH. ESCAPES ΤΟ THE GIAGAS. RETURNS TO PEACE WITH ENGLAND. — BATTEL'S DISMISSAL Refused.—HE DESERTS THE THIRD TIME. BETAKES HIMSELF TO THE WOODS. LAKE KASANSA. HE BUILDS A BOAT, AND REACHES THE SEA. PICKED UP. RETURNS

MASSINGANO.

ATROCITIES.

SENEGAL COM

HOME. -MISSION TO THE GIAGAS. THEIR
ZINGHA EMBRACES CHRISTIANITY.- ENGLISH
PANY. THOMPSON ASCENDS THE GAMBIA. HIS DEATH. —
VOYAGE OF JOBSON. - CONFERENCE WITH BUCKAR SANO. -
ACCOUNTS OF TIMBUCTOO. THE SILENT TRAFFIC.- FRENCH
COMPANIES. JANNEQUIN'S TRAVELS. - BRUE ASCENDS THE
SENEGAL. RECEIVES INTELLIGENCE OF THE GOLD TRADE.
COMPAGNON VISITS BAMBOUK. REMISSNESS OF THE POR-

TUGUESE.

WHILE the Europeans planted their flag and established their power in the New World, and in the remotest countries of the East, they made comparatively little progress nearer home, where, nevertheless, they did not neglect to make pretensions of dominion. African discoveries

were not prosecuted with zeal until their difficulty was fully known, and until curiosity was excited by an appearance of inscrutable mystery. The Portuguese, having first discovered the coasts of Africa, asserted, by virtue of the pope's grant, an exclusive right to the trade or dominion of that extensive region. The English, at an early period, attempted to share in this trade. In 1481,

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