The announcement that the waters in which he was sailing
led inward to a fresh-water river brought to Cartier not
the sense of elation that should have accompanied so
great a discovery, but a feeling of disappointment. A
fresh-water river could not be the westward passage to
Asia that he had hoped to find, and, interested though
he might be in the rumoured kingdom of Saguenay, it was
with reluctance that he turned from the waters of the
Gulf to the ascent of the great river. Indeed, he decided
not to do this until he had tried by every means to find
the wished-for opening on the coast of the Gulf.
Accordingly, he sailed to the northern shore and came to
the land among the Seven Islands, which lie near the
mouth of the Ste Marguerite river, about eighty-five
miles west of Anticosti,--the Round Islands, Cartier
called them. Here, having brought the ships to a safe
anchorage, riding in twenty fathoms of water, he sent
the boats eastward to explore the portion of the coast
towards Anticosti which he had not yet seen. He cherished
a last hope that here, perhaps, the westward passage
might open before him. But the boats returned from the
expedition with no news other than that of a river flowing
into the Gulf, in such volume that its water was still
fresh three miles from the shore. The men declared, too,
that they had seen 'fishes shaped like horses,' which,
so the Indians said, retired to shore at night, and spent
the day in the sea. The creatures, no doubt, were walruses.

It was on August 15 that Cartier had left Anticosti for
the Gaspe shore: it was not until the 24th that, delayed