cornfields, has frequently been quoted. But other points of Cartier's
narrative, concerning the numbers and relations of the population, have
scarcely been studied. Let us examine this phase of it. During his first
voyage in 1534, in the neighbourhood of Gaspé, he met on the water the
first people speaking the tongue of this race, a temporary fishing
community of over 200 souls, men, women and children, in some 40
canoes, under which they slept, having evidently no village there, but
belonging, as afterwards is stated, to Stadacona. He seized and carried
to France two of them, who, when he returned next year, called the place
where they had been taken _Honguédo_, and said that the north shore,
above Anticosti Island, was the commencement of inhabited country which
led to _Canada_ (the Quebec region), Hochelaga, (Montreal) and the
country of _Saguenay_, far to the west "whence came the red copper" (of
which axes have since been found in the débris of Hochelaga, and which,
in fact, came from Lake Superior), and that no man they ever heard of
had ever been to the end of the great river of fresh water above. Here
we have the first indication of the racial situation of the Hochelagans.
At the mouth of the Saguenay River--so called because it was one of the
routes to the Sagnenay of the Algonquins, west of the Upper Ottawa--he
found four fishing canoes from Canada. Plenty of fishing was prosecuted
from this point upwards. In "the Province of Canada," he proceeds,
"there are several peoples in unwalled villages." At the Isle of
Orleans, just below Quebec, the principal peace chief, or, Agouhanna of
"Canada," Donnaconna, came to them with 12 canoes from the town (ville)
of Stadacona, or Stadaconé, which was surrounded by tilled land on the
heights. Twenty-five canoes from Stadacona afterwards visited them;
and later Donnaconna brought on board "10 or 12 other of the greatest
chiefs" with more than 500 persons, men, women and children, some
doubtless from the neighbouring settlements. If the same 200 persons as
in the previous year were absent fishing at Gaspé, and others in other