in the mouth of the Gulf of St Lawrence, to have suspected
that a passage here lay to the open sea. Doubtless the
set of the wind and current revealed it to the trained
instinct of the pilot. 'If it were so,' he wrote, 'it
would be a great shortening as well of the time as of
the way, if any perfection could be found in it.' But it
was just as well that he did not seek further the opening
into the Atlantic. By turning westward from the 'heel'
of Newfoundland he was led to discover the milder waters
and the more fortunate lands which awaited him on the
further side of the Gulf.



CHAPTER III

THE FIRST VOYAGE--THE GULF OF ST LAWRENCE

On June 25 Cartier turned his course away from Newfoundland
and sailed westward into what appeared to be open sea.
But it was not long before he came in sight of land again.
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. At the present time a lighthouse of the Canadian
government casts its rays from the top of one of these
rocky islets, across the tossing waters of the Gulf.
Innumerable sea-fowl encircled the isolated spot and