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Chap. 17. How Donnacona came to Stadacona againe with a great number of people, and because he would not come to visit our Captaine, fained himselfe to be sore sicke, which he did only to haue the Captaine come see him.
When we reach Quebec he'll never forget for an instant that it was once Stadacona, a village of the Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, and one of the great nations of the Hodenosaunee." "No, he will not," said Robert, "and look who is waiting to meet us!"
Rather than allow himself and his men to be overwhelmed by an attack of the great concourse of warriors who surrounded the settlement of Stadacona, he determined to take his leave in his own way and at his own time, and to carry off with him the leaders of the savages themselves. Following the custom of his age, he did not wish to return without the visible signs of his achievements.
But when May arrived Roberval was not ready and Cartier's ships set sail alone, with the understanding that Roberval would follow. Cartier in due course reached Newfoundland, where for six weeks he awaited his viceroy. At length, his patience exhausted, he determined to push on alone to Stadacona, where he arrived toward the end of August.
Cartier must, indeed, have been perplexed, and perhaps alarmed, at the conduct of the Stadacona natives. It was his policy throughout his voyages to deal with the Indians fairly and generously, to avoid all violence towards them, and to content himself with bringing to them the news of the Gospel and the visible signs of the greatness of the king of France.
Using as interpreters two young Indians whom he had captured in the Gaspé region during his first voyage in the preceding year, Cartier was able to learn from the Indians at Stadacona that there was another settlement of importance at Hochelaga, now Montreal.
"Where!" he exclaimed in an excited voice, "did you get this?" "From Donnacona, of whom you have heard, and whom indeed you have seen for yourself." "And where did Donnacona get it?" "Far west of his home at Stadacona, and of Hochelaga, too." "I must see him at once," said Roberval. "That will be difficult, Sieur," replied Cartier. "He is in Heaven." "Dead, is he?
Champlain found no traces of the Indians of Cartier's time at Stadacona and Hochelaga. The tribes which had frequented the St. Lawrence seventy years before had vanished, and in their place he saw bands of wandering Algonquins. It was only when he reached the shores of Georgian Bay that he came to Indian villages resembling that Hochelaga which had disappeared so mysteriously. The St.
Champlain had heard of the remedy used by Cartier, but the tribes which had been at Stadacona in Cartier's time had now disappeared, and there was no one to point out the old-time remedy to the suffering garrison. So the scourge went on unchecked. The ravages of disease were so severe that, when a relief ship arrived in the early summer of 1609, all but eight of Champlain's party had succumbed.
They finally reached the harbour of the Holy Cross at Stadacona on August 23. The savages flocked to meet the ships with a great display of joy, looking eagerly for the return of their vanished Donnacona. Their new chief, Agouhanna, with six canoes filled with men, women, and children, put off from the shore. The moment was a difficult one.
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