On July 12 the ships went north again. Their progress
was slow. Boisterous gales drove in great seas from the
outer Gulf. At times the wind, blowing hard from the
north, checked their advance and they had, as best they
could, to ride out the storm. The sky was lowering and
overcast, and thick mist and fog frequently enwrapped
the ships. The 16th saw them driven by stress of weather
into Gaspe Bay, where they lay until the 25th, with so
dark a sky and so violent a storm raging over the Gulf
that not even the daring seamen of St Malo thought it
wise to venture out.

Here again they saw savages in great numbers, but belonging,
so Cartier concluded, to a different tribe from those
seen on the bay below. 'We gave them knives,' he wrote,
'combs, beads of glass, and other trifles of small value,
for which they made many signs of gladness, lifting their
hands up to heaven, dancing and singing in their boats.'
They appeared to be a miserable people, in the lowest
stage of savagery, going about practically naked, and
owning nothing of any value except their boats and their
fishing-nets. He noted that their heads were shaved except
for a tuft 'on the top of the crown as long as a horse's
tail.' This, of course, was the 'scalp lock,' so suggestive
now of the horrors of Indian warfare, but meaning nothing
to the explorer. From its presence it is supposed that
the savages were Indians of the Huron-Iroquois tribe.
Cartier thought, from their destitute state, that there
could be no poorer people in the world.