A Book of Discovery Part 20

CHAPTER x.x.xI

JACQUES CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA

All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas was.h.i.+ng the western coast of North America; Verazzano, a Florentine, in the service of France, had explored the coast of the United States, and a good deal was known when Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, steps upon the scene and wins for his country a large tract of land about the river St. Lawrence.

His object was to find a way across America to Cathay. With two little s.h.i.+ps of sixty tons and sixty-one "chosen men," Cartier left St. Malo on 20th April 1534. With prosperous weather he tells us he made the coast of Newfoundland in three weeks, which would mean sailing over one hundred miles a day. He was a little too early in the season, for the easterly winds which had helped him on his way had blocked the east coast of the island with Arctic ice. Having named the point at which he first touched land Cape Bona Vista, he cruised about till, the ice having melted, he could sail down the straits of Belle Isle between the mainland of Labrador and Newfoundland, already discovered by Breton fishermen. Then he explored the now familiar Gulf of St.

Lawrence--the first European to report on it. All through June the little French s.h.i.+ps sailed about the Gulf, darting across from island to island and cape to cape. Prince Edward Island appealed to him strongly. "It is very pleasant to behold," he tells us. "We found sweet-smelling trees as cedars, yews, pines, ash, willow. Where the ground was bare of trees it seemed very fertile and was full of wild corn, red and white gooseberries, strawberries, and blackberries, as if it had been cultivated on purpose." It now grew hotter, and Cartier must have been glad of a little heat. He sighted Nova Scotia and sailed by the coast of New Brunswick, without naming or surveying them. He describes accurately the bay still called Chaleur Bay: "We named this the Warm Bay, for the country is warmer even than Spain and exceedingly pleasant." They sailed up as far as they could, filled with hope that this might be the long-sought pa.s.sage to the Pacific Ocean. Hope Cape they named the southern point, but they were disappointed by finding only a deep bay, and to-day, by a strange coincidence, the point opposite the northern sh.o.r.e is known as Cape Despair--the Cap d'Espoir of the early French mariners. Sailing on to the north amid strong currents and a heavy sea, Cartier at last put into a shelter (Gaspe Bay). Here, "on the 24th of July, we made a great cross thirty feet high, on which we hung up a s.h.i.+eld with three fleurs-de-lis, and inscribed the cross with this motto: 'Vive le roi de France.' When this was finished, in presence of all the natives, we all knelt down before the cross, holding up our hands to heaven and praising G.o.d."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACQUES CARTIER. From an old pen drawing at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.]

Storms and strong tides now decided Cartier to return to France. He knew nothing of the Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and the land afterwards called Nova Scotia, so he guided his little s.h.i.+ps right through the Straits of Belle Isle, and after being "much tossed by a heavy tempest from the east, which we weathered by the blessing of G.o.d," he arrived safely home on 5th September, after his six months'

adventure. He was soon commissioned to continue the navigation of these new lands, and in May 1535 he safely led three s.h.i.+ps slightly larger than the last across the stormy Atlantic. Contrary winds, heavy gales, and thick fogs turned the voyage of three weeks into five--the s.h.i.+ps losing one another not to meet again till the coast of Labrador was reached. Coasting along the southern coast, Cartier now entered a "very fine and large bay, full of islands, and with channels of entrance and exit in all winds." Cartier named it "Baye Saint Laurens,"

because he entered it on 10th August--the feast of St. Lawrence.

Do any of the English men and women who steam up the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the great ocean steamers to-day, on their way to Canada, ever give a thought to the little pioneer French s.h.i.+ps that four hundred years ago thought they were sailing toward Cathay?

"Savages," as Cartier calls the Indians, told him that he was near the mouth of the great river Hochelaga (now the St. Lawrence), which became narrower "as we approach towards Canada, where the water is fresh."

"On the first day of September," says Cartier, "we set sail from the said harbour for Canada." Canada was just a native word for a town or village. It seems strange to read of the "lord of Canada" coming down the river with twelve canoes and many people to greet the first white men he had ever seen; strange, too, to find Cartier arriving at "the place called Hochelaga--twenty-five leagues above Canada,"

where the river becomes very narrow, with a rapid current and very dangerous on account of rocks. For another week the French explorers sailed on up the unknown river. The country was pleasant, well-wooded, with "vines as full of grapes as they would hang." On 2nd October, Cartier arrived at the native town of Hochelaga. He was welcomed by hundreds of natives,--men, women, and children,--who gave the travellers as "friendly a welcome as if we had been of their own nation come home after a long and perilous absence." The women carried their children to him to touch them, for they evidently thought that some supernatural being had come up from the sea. All night they danced to the light of fires lit upon the sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANADA AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING QUEBEC (KEBEC). From Lescarbot's _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, 1609.]

The next morning Cartier, "having dressed himself splendidly," went ash.o.r.e with some of his men. All were well armed, though the natives seemed peacefully disposed. They marched along a well-beaten track to the Indian city, which stood in the midst of cultivated fields of Indian corn and maize. Again the inhabitants met them with signs of joy and gladness, and the King was carried shoulder high, seated on a large deer-skin with a red wreath round his head made of the skins of hedgehogs instead of a crown.

A curious scene then took place. The King placed his crown on the head of the French explorer, before whom he humbled himself as before a G.o.d. Thus evidently did the people regard him, for they brought to him their blind, their lame, and their diseased folk that he might cure them. Touched with pity at the groundless confidence of these poor people, Cartier signed them with the sign of the cross. "He then opened a service book and read the pa.s.sion of Christ in an audible voice, during which all the natives kept a profound silence, looking up to heaven and imitating all our gestures. He then caused our trumpets and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives very merry."

Cartier and his men then went to the top of the neighbouring mountain.

The extensive view from the top created a deep impression on the French explorer; he grew enthusiastic over the beauty of the level valley below and called the place Mont Royal--a name communicated to the busy city of Montreal that lies below.

Winter was now coming on, and Cartier decided against attempting the homeward voyage so late in the year; but to winter in the country he chose a spot between Montreal and Quebec, little thinking what the long winter months would bring forth. The little handful of Frenchmen had no idea of the severity of the Canadian climate; they little dreamt of the interminable months of ice and snow when no navigation was possible. Before Christmas had come round the men were down with scurvy; by the middle of February, "out of one hundred and ten persons composing the companies of our three s.h.i.+ps, there were not ten in perfect health. Eight were dead already. The sickness increased to such a pitch that there were not above three sound men in the whole company; we were obliged to bury such as died under the snow, as the ground was frozen quite hard, and we were all reduced to extreme weakness, and we lost all hope of ever returning to France." From November to March four feet of snow lay upon the decks of their little s.h.i.+ps. And yet, shut up as they were in the heart of a strange and unknown land, with their s.h.i.+ps icebound and nought but savages around, there is no sound of murmur or complaint. "It must be allowed that the winter that year was uncommonly long" is all we hear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW FRANCE, SHOWING NEWFOUNDLAND, LABRADOR, AND THE ST. LAWRENCE. From Jocomo di Gastaldi's Map, about 1550. The "Isola de Demoni" is Labrador, and "Terra Nuova" and the islands south of it make up Newfoundland. The snaky-like line represents a sandbank, which was then thought, and agreed, to be the limit of fis.h.i.+ng. Montreal (Port Real) will be noticed on the coast.]

May found them free once more and making for home with the great news that, though they had not found the way to Cathay, they had discovered and taken a great new country for France.

A new map of the world in 1536 marks Canada and Labrador, and gives the river St. Lawrence just beyond Montreal. A map of 1550 goes further, and calls the sea that washes the sh.o.r.es of Newfoundland and Labrador the "Sea of France," while to the south it is avowedly the "Sea of Spain."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "DAUPHIN" MAP OF THE WORLD. MADE BY PIERRE DESCELIERS, 1546, TO THE ORDER OF FRANCIS I., FOR THE DAUPHIN (HENRI II. OF FRANCE). This map gives a remarkably clear and interesting view of geographical knowledge in the first half of the sixteenth century.

(It is to be noted that all objects on one side of the Equinoctial are reversed.)]

CHAPTER x.x.xII

SEARCH FOR A NORTH-EAST Pa.s.sAGE

England was now awaking from her sleep--too late to possess the Spice Islands--too late for India and the Cape of Good Hope--too late, it would seem, for the New World. The Portuguese held the eastern route, the Spaniards the western route to the Spice Islands. But what if there were a northern route? All ways apparently led to Cathay. Why should England not find a way to that glorious land by taking a northern course?

"If the seas toward the north be navigable we may go to these Spice Islands by a shorter way than Spain and Portugal," said Master Thorne of Bristol--a friend of the Cabots.

"But the northern seas are blocked with ice and the northern lands are too cold for man to dwell in," objected some.

"_There is no land uninhabitable, nor sea unnavigable_," was the heroic reply.

"It was in this belief, and in this heroic temper, that England set herself to take possession of her heritage, the north. But it was not till the reign of Edward VI. that a Company of Merchant Adventurers was formed for the discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and places unknown," with old Sebastian Cabot as its first governor, and not till the year 1553 that three little s.h.i.+ps under Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor were fitted out for a northern cruise. They carried letters of introduction from the boy-king of England to "all Kings, Princes, Rulers, Judges, and Governors of the Earth in all places under the universal heaven," including those "inhabiting the north-east parts of the world toward the mighty Empire of Cathay."

Sir Hugh Willoughby, "a most valiant gentleman," hoisted the English flag on the _Bona Esperanza_, a good little s.h.i.+p of one hundred and twenty tons. The next in command was Richard Chancellor, "a man of great estimation for many good parts of wit in him," who sailed the _Edward Bonadventure_, which though not so fast as the flag-s.h.i.+p, was slightly larger. So certain were the promoters that the s.h.i.+ps would reach the hot climates beyond Cathay that they had them sheathed with lead to protect them from worms which had proved so destructive in the tropics before.

The account of the start of these first English Arctic explorers is too quaint to be pa.s.sed in silence. "It was thought best that by the 20th of May the Captains and Mariners should take s.h.i.+pping and depart if it pleased G.o.d. They, having saluted their acquaintance, one his wife, another his children, another his kinsfolk, and another his friends dearer than his kinsfolk, were ready at the day appointed.

The greater s.h.i.+ps are towed down with boats and oars, and the mariners, being all apparelled in sky-coloured cloth, made way with diligence.

And being come near to Greenwich (where the Court then lay), the Courtiers came running out and the common people flocked together, standing very thick upon the sh.o.r.e: the Privy Council, they looked out of the windows of the Court, and the rest ran up to the tops of the towers, and the mariners shouted in such sort that the sky rang again with the noise thereof. But, alas! the good King Edward--he only by reason of his sickness was absent from this show."

The s.h.i.+ps dropped down to Woolwich with the tide and coasted along the east coast of England till "at the last with a good wind they hoisted up sail and committed themselves to the sea, giving their last adieu to their native country--many of them could not refrain from tears."

Richard Chancellor himself had left behind two little sons, and his poor mind was tormented with sorrow and care.

By the middle of July the North Sea had been crossed, and the three small s.h.i.+ps were off the sh.o.r.es of Norway, coasting among the islands and fiords that line that indented kingdom. Coasting still northward, Willoughby led his s.h.i.+ps to the Lofoten Islands, "plentifully inhabited by very gentle people" under the King of Denmark. They sailed on--

"To the west of them was the ocean, To the right the desolate sh.o.r.e."

till they had pa.s.sed the North Cape, already discovered by Othere, the old sea-captain who dwelt in Helgoland.

A terrible storm now arose, and "the sea was so outrageous that the s.h.i.+ps could not keep their intended course, but some were driven one way and some another way to their great peril and hazard." Then Sir Hugh Willoughby shouted across the roaring seas to Richard Chancellor, begging him not to go far from him. But the little s.h.i.+ps got separated and never met again. Willoughby was blown across the sea to Nova Zembla.

"The sea was rough and stormy, The tempest howled and wailed, And the sea-fog like a ghost Haunted that dreary coast.

But onward still I sailed."

The weather grew more and more Arctic, and he made his way over to a haven in Lapland where he decided to winter. He sent men to explore the country, but no signs of mankind could be found; there were bears and foxes and all manner of strange beasts, but never a human being.

It must have been desperately dreary as the winter advanced, with ice and snow and freezing winds from the north. What this little handful of Englishmen did, how they endured the bitter winter on the desolate sh.o.r.es of Lapland, no man knows. Willoughby was alive in January 1554--then all is silent.

And what of Richard Chancellor on board the _Bonadventure_? "Pensive, heavy, and sorrowful," but resolute to carry out his orders, "Master Chancellor held on his course towards that unknown part of the world, and sailed so far that he came at last to the place where he found no night at all, but a continual light and brightness of the Sun, s.h.i.+ning clearly upon the huge and mighty Sea." After a time he found and entered a large bay where he anch.o.r.ed, making friends with the fisher folk on the sh.o.r.es of the White Sea to the north of Russia.

So frightened were the natives at the greatness of the English s.h.i.+ps that at first they ran away, half-dead with fear. Soon, however, they regained confidence and, throwing themselves down, they began to kiss the explorer's feet, "but he (according to his great and singular courtesy) looked pleasantly upon them." By signs and gestures he comforted them until they brought food to the "new-come guests," and went to tell their king of the arrival of "a strange nation of singular gentleness and courtesy."

Then the King of Russia or Muscovie--Ivan Vasiliwich--sent for Master Chancellor to go to Moscow. The journey had to be made in sledges over the ice and snow. A long and weary journey it must have been, for his guide lost the way, and they had travelled nearly one thousand five hundred miles before Master Chancellor came at last to Moscow, the chief city of the kingdom, "as great as the city of London with all its suburbs," remarks Chancellor. Arrived at the King's palace, Master Chancellor was received by one hundred Russian courtiers dressed in cloth of gold to the very ankles. The King sat aloft on a high throne, with a crown of gold on his head, holding in his hand a glittering sceptre studded with precious stones. The Englishman and his companions saluted the King, who received them graciously and read the letter from Edward VI. with interest. They did not know that the boy-king was dead, and that his sister Mary was on the throne of England.

The King was much interested in the long beards grown by the Englishmen.

That of one of the company was five foot two inches in length, "thick, broad, and yellow coloured." "This is G.o.d's gift," said the Russians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IVAN VASILIWICH, KING OF MUSCOVIE. From a sixteenth century woodcut.]

To Edward VI. of England the King sent a letter by the hands of Richard Chancellor, giving leave readily for England to trade with Russia.

Master Chancellor seems to have arrived home again safely with his account of Russia, which encouraged the Merchant Adventurers to send forth more s.h.i.+ps to develop trade with this great new country of which they knew so little.