of 1556 quoted by Parkman this name appears to be given as Muscova, a
district placed on the right bank of the Richelieu River and opposite
Hochelay, but possibly this is a pure guess, though it is a likely one.
It may perhaps be conjectured that Stadacona, Tailla and Tekenouday,
being on heights, were the oldest strongholds in their region.

All the country was covered with forests "except around the peoples,
who cut it down to make their settlement and tillage." At Stadacona he
was shown five scalps of a race called _Toudamans_ from the south, with
whom they were constantly at war, and who had killed about 200 of their
people at Massacre Island, Bic, in a cave, while they were on the way to
Honguédo to fish. All these names must of course be given the old French
pronunciation.

Proceeding up the river near Hochelaga he found "a great number of
dwellings along the shore" inhabited by fisherfolk, as was the custom of
the Huron-Iroquois in the summer season. The village called Hochelay was
situated about forty-five miles above Stadacona, at the Richelieu rapid,
between which and Hochelaga, a distance of about 135 miles, he mentions
no village. This absence of settlements I attribute to the fact that the
intermediate Three Rivers region was an ancient special appurtenance of
the Algonquins, with whom the Hochelagans were to all appearance then on
terms of friendly sufferance and trade, if not alliance. In later days
the same region was uninhabited, on account of Iroquois incursions by
the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain. In the islands at the head of
Lake St. Peter, Cartier met five hunters who directed him to Hochelaga.
"More than a thousand" persons, he says, received them with joy at
Hochelaga. This expression of number however is not very definite. It is
frequently used by Dante to signify a multitude in the _Divina Comédia_.
The town of Hochelaga consisted of "about fifty houses, in length about