for generations behind the woodwork of the old Canadian
house is indeed that of the great discoverer. Beside the
initials is carved the date 1704.. This wooden medallion
would appear to have once figured as the stern shield of
some French vessel, wrecked probably upon the Gaspe coast.
As it must have been made long before the St Malo portrait
was painted, the resemblance of the two faces perhaps
indicates the existence of some definite and genuine
portrait of Jacques Cartier, of which the record has been
lost.

It appears, therefore, that we have the right to be
content with the picture which hangs in the town hall of
the seaport of St Malo. If it does not show us Cartier
as he was,--and we have no absolute proof in the one or
the other direction,--at least it shows us Cartier as he
might well have been, with precisely the face and bearing
which the hero-worshipper would read into the character
of such a discoverer.

The port of St Malo, the birthplace and the home of
Cartier, is situated in the old province of Brittany, in
the present department of Ille-et-Vilaine. It is thus
near the lower end of the English Channel. To the north,
about forty miles away, lies Jersey, the nearest of the
Channel Islands, while on the west surges the restless
tide of the broad Atlantic. The situation of the port
has made it a nursery of hardy seamen. The town stands
upon a little promontory that juts out as a peninsula
into the ocean. The tide pours in and out of the harbour