the interior until he had come upon a great lake of salt water, far to the
northwest. This was, as it happened, the very thing which the French
government and all Europe had most hoped to find. They had always believed
that sooner or later a short cut would be discovered across the newly
found continent, a passage leading to the Pacific Ocean and far Cathay.
This was the dream of all French explorers, and of Champlain in
particular, and his interest was at once excited by anything that looked
toward the Pacific. Now Vignan had prepared himself with just the needed
information. He said that during his winter with the Indians he had made
the very discovery needed; that he had ascended the river Ottawa, which
led to a body of salt water so large that it seemed like an ocean; that he
had just seen on its shores the wreck of an English ship, from which
eighty men had been taken and slain by the savages, and that they had with
them an English boy whom they were keeping to present to Champlain.

This tale about the English ship was evidently founded on the recent
calamities of Henry Hudson, of which Vignan had heard some garbled
account, and which he used as coloring for his story. The result was that
Champlain was thoroughly interested in the tale, and that Vignan was
cross-examined and tested, and was made at last to certify to the truth
of it before two notaries of Rochelle. Champlain privately consulted the
chancellor de Sillery, the old Marquis de Brissac, and others, who all
assured him that the matter should be followed up; and he resolved to make
it the subject of an exploration without delay. He sailed in one vessel,
and Vignan in another, the latter taking with him an ardent young
Frenchman, Albert de Brissac.

M. de Vignan, talking with the young Brissac on the voyage, told him
wonderful tales of monsters which were, he said, the guardians of the St.
Lawrence River. There was, he said, an island in the bay of Chaleurs, near