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Chap. 8. How we came to the Towne of Hochelaga, and the entertainement which there we had, and of certaine gifts which our Captaine gaue them, with diuers other things. So soone as we were come neere the Towne, a great number of the inhabitants thereof came to present themselues before vs after their fashion, making very much of vs: we were by our guides brought into the middest of the towne.
Cartier was equally charmed with the varied scenery and the fruitful soil of the country around Stadacona. It was now the middle of September, and Cartier determined, since his men had fully recovered from the fatigues of the voyage, to proceed up the river as far as Hochelaga, of which he was constantly hearing accounts from the Indians.
A fleet is to be fitted out at once; the governors of all the provinces are to aid in securing arms; and I" the little nobleman seemed to grow several inches as he uttered the words "I am created Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and Lieutenant-General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos."
Moreouer they told vs, that where we had left our Pinnesse when wee went to Hochelaga, there is a riuer that goeth Southwest, from whence there is a whole moneths sayling to goe to a certaine land, where there is neither yce nor snow seene, where the inhabitants doe continually warre one against another, where there is great store of Oranges, Almonds, Nuts, and Apples, with many other sorts of fruits, and that the men and women are clad with beasts skinnes euen as they: we asked them if there were any gold or red copper, they answered no.
When, in 1536, the Breton sailor Jacques Cartier returned from his early explorations of the St. Lawrence, which he had ascended as high as Hochelaga, King Francis I. sent for him at the lofty old house known as the House of the Salamander, in a narrow street of the quaint town of Lisieux.
When in that year he once more anchored his ships near Quebec he found the attitude of the Hurons changed. However, he sent back to France two of the ships under his command and beached the other three, landed his stores, built two forts at Cap Rouge, above and below, and then started off with a few of his men and two boats to revisit the country of Hochelaga.
The ships were unloaded and two of the vessels were sent back to France. The rest of the expedition prepared to winter at Cap Rouge, a short distance above the settlement. Once more Cartier made a short trip up the river to Hochelaga, but with no important incidents, and here the voyageur's journal comes to an end. He may have written more, but if so the pages have never been found.
A vaguer picture of Champlain, who, seeking a westward route to China and the East, some three quarters of a century later, had fixed the first trading-post at Montreal, and camped upon the spot where the convent of the Gray Nuns now stands, appeared before him, and vanished with all its fleets of fur-traders' boats and hunters' birch canoes, and the watch-fires of both; and then in the sweet light of the spring morning, he saw Maisonneuve leaping ashore upon the green meadows, that spread all gay with early flowers where Hochelaga once stood, and with the black-robed Jesuits, the high-born, delicately nurtured, and devoted nuns, and the steel-clad soldiers of his train, kneeling about the altar raised there in the wilderness, and silent amidst the silence of nature at the lifted Host.
Here the first explorer, Cartier, found Indians of this stock at Hochelaga and Stadacone, now the sites of Montreal and Quebec. Centuries before his time, according to the native tradition, the ancestors of the Huron-Iroquois family had dwelt in this locality, or still further east and nearer to the river's mouth. As their numbers increased, dissensions arose.
Well sir, nice, bright, young wife, sing, act, dance we'd have beeg tam together, and I'd dhrink nothing but tea, sure! Go to Morréall, buy tiquette on the theatre, ride on the street car, make transfer to Hochelaga Park, get out, have nice glass beer just one, m'sieu go on the boutiques, buy nice bonnett, eh?
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