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Hakluyt's Voyages contain an English translation of Cartier's own writings which cover the whole of the first two expeditions and a portion of the third. Champlain's journals, which describe in detail his sea voyages and inland trips of exploration during the years 1604-1618 inclusive, were translated into English and published by the Prince Society of Boston during the years 1878-1882.
It is possible, indeed, that not only had he been in Brazil, but that he had carried a native of that country to France. In a baptismal register of St Malo is recorded the christening, in 1528, of a certain 'Catherine of Brezil, to whom Cartier's wife stood godmother.
In the year 1534, James Cartier, a skilful navigator, being provided with a commission from the King of France, set sail from St. Malo, with two ships of sixty tons burden, carrying one hundred and twenty-two well-equipped seamen, in order to reconnoitre that part of the New World. Cartier's first voyage was quite successful.
Cartier's marriage was childless, so that he left no direct descendants. But the branches of the family descended from the original Jean Cartier appear on the registers of St Malo, Saint Briac, and other places in some profusion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Cartier's narrative describes the town as circular, inclosed by three rows of palisades arranged like a pyramid, crossed at the top, with the middle stakes standing perpendicular, and the others at an angle on each side, all being well joined and fastened after the Indian fashion.
"If I cannot get men to accompany me," said Charles, "Etienne and I will go alone;" and as he spoke, Etienne, who was standing by in Cartier's orchard, where the conversation took place, nodded assent, and muttered a determined "Ay, that we will!"
About sixty miles from the Newfoundland shore and thirty miles east from the Magdalen Islands, two abrupt rocks rise side by side from the sea; through one of them the beating surf has bored a passage, so that to Cartier's eye, as his ships hove in sight of them, the rocks appeared as three.
From the eminence on which the Huron city stood, Cartier obtained a splendid view of rivers and mountains and magnificent forests, and called the place then and there, in his Norman French, Mont Real, or Royal Eminence, a name which it will probably bear for all time, though the actual city of Montreal lies a few miles below. Montreal was the limit of Cartier's explorations on this journey.
But just as Cartier's discovery of the St Lawrence led to the pursuit of the little beaver across a continent, so the Russians' discovery of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands led to the pursuit of the sea-otter up and down the North Pacific; led the way, indeed, to that contest for world supremacy on the Pacific in which the great powers of three continents are to-day engaged.
None were allowed aboard the ships, and, as far as might be, a great clatter of hammering was kept up whenever the Indians appeared in sight, so that they might suppose that Cartier's men were forced by the urgency of their tasks to remain on the ships. Nor was spiritual aid neglected.
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