thick cloak, gathered by a belt at the waist, enwraps
the stalwart figure. On his head is the tufted Breton
cap familiar in the pictures of the days of the great
navigators. At the waist, on the left side, hangs a sword,
and, on the right, close to the belt, the dirk or poniard
of the period.

How like or unlike the features of Cartier this picture
in the town hall may be, we have no means of telling.
Painted probably in 1839, it has hung there for more than
seventy years, and the record of the earlier prints or
drawings from which its artist drew his inspiration no
longer survives. We know, indeed, that an ancient map of
the eastern coast of America, made some ten years after
the first of Cartier's voyages, has pictured upon it a
group of figures that represent the landing of the
navigator and his followers among the Indians of Gaspe.
It was the fashion of the time to attempt by such
decorations to make maps vivid. Demons, deities,
mythological figures and naked savages disported themselves
along the borders of the maps and helped to decorate
unexplored spaces of earth and ocean. Of this sort is
the illustration on the map in question. But it is
generally agreed that we have no right to identify Cartier
with any of the figures in the scene, although the group
as a whole undoubtedly typifies his landing upon the
seacoast of Canada.

There is rumour, also, that the National Library at Paris
contains an old print of Cartier, who appears therein as