miles up the river, appeared so fertile and so densely
covered with wild grapes hanging to the river's edge,
that Cartier named it the Isle of Bacchus. He himself,
however, afterwards altered the name to the Island of
Orleans. These islands, so the savages said, marked the
beginning of the country known as Canada.



CHAPTER V

THE SECOND VOYAGE--STADACONA

At the time when Cartier ascended the St Lawrence, a
great settlement of the Huron-Iroquois Indians existed
at Quebec. Their village was situated below the heights,
close to the banks of the St Charles, a small tributary
of the St Lawrence. Here the lodges of the tribe gave
shelter to many hundred people. Beautiful trees--elm and
ash and maple and birch, as fair as the trees of
France--adorned the banks of the river, and the open
spaces of the woods waved with the luxuriant growth of
Indian corn. Here were the winter home of the tribe and
the wigwam of the chief. From this spot hunting and
fishing parties of the savages descended the great river
and wandered as far as the pleasant country of Chaleur
Bay. Sixty-four years later, when Champlain ascended the
St Lawrence, the settlement and the tribe that formerly
occupied the spot had vanished. But in the time of Cartier
the Quebec village, under its native name of Stadacona,