The visit being finished, the natives accompanied the French to their boats, carrying such as were weary on their shoulders. They were loth to part with their guests, and followed them along the shore of the river to a considerable distance.

On the fourth of October Cartier and his company departed from Hochelaga. In passing down the river they erected a cross on the point of an island which, with three others, lay in the mouth of a shallow river, on the north side, called Fouetz. On the eleventh they arrived at the Port de St. Croix, and found that their companions had enclosed the ships with a palisade and rampart, on which they had mounted cannon.

The next day Donacona invited them to his residence, where they were entertained with the usual festivity and made the customary presents. They observed that these people used the leaves of an herb [tobacco], which they preserved in pouches made of skins and smoked in stone pipes. It was very offensive to the French,* but the natives valued it as

* [The use of this weed was a matter of great astonishment, as well as disgust, to the French. The writer of Cartier's voyage says, "they sucke so long that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils, even es out of the tunnel of a chimney."-H.]

contributing much to the preservation of their health. Their houses appeared to be well supplied with provisions. Among other things which were new to the French, they observed the scalps of five men spread and dried like parchment. These were taken from their enemies the Toudamani, who came from the south, and were continually at war with them.

Being determined to spend the winter among these friendly people, they traded with them for the provisions which they could spare, and the river supplied them with fish till it was hard frozen.

In December the scurvy began to make its appearance among the natives, and Cartier prohibited all intercourse with them; but it was not long before his own men were taken with it. It raged with uncontrolled violence for above two months, and by the middle of February, out of one hundred and ten persons, fifty were sick at once, and eight or ten had died.

In this extremity Cartier appointed a day of solemn humiliation and prayer. A crucifix was placed on a tree, and as many as were able to walk went in procession, through the ice and snow, singing the seven penitential Psalms, and performing other devotional ex

ercises. At the close of the solemnity Cartier made a vow that, "if it would please God to permit him to return to France, he would go in pilgrimage to our Lady of Roquemado." But it was necessary to watch as well as pray. To prevent the natives from knowing their weak and defenceless state, he obliged all who were able to make as much noise as possible with axes and hammers; and told the natives that his men were all busily employed, and that he would not suffer any of them to go from the ships till their work was done. The ships were fast frozen up from the middle of November to the middle of March; the snow was four feet deep, and higher than the sides of the ships above the ice. The severity of the winter exceeded all which they had ever experienced; the scurvy still raged; twenty-five men had fallen victims to it, and the others were so weak and low in spirits that they despaired of ever seeing their native country.

In the depth of this distress and despondency, Cartier, who had escaped the disease, in walking one day on the ice met some of the natives, among whom was Domagaia, one of the young men who had been with him to France, and who then resided with his coun

trymen at Stadacona. He had been sick with the scurvy, his sinews had been shrunk and his knees swollen, his teeth loose, and his gums rotten; but he was then recovered, and told Cartier of a certain tree, the leaves and bark of which he had used as a remedy. Cartier expressed his wish to see the tree, telling him that one of his people had been affected with the same disorder. Two women were immediately despatched, who brought ten or twelve branches, and showed him how to prepare the decoction, which was thus: "to boil the bark and the leaves; to drink of the liquor every other day; and to put the dregs on the legs of the sick."*

*This tree was called by the natives Ameda or Haneda. Mr. Hakluyt supposes it to have been the sassafras; but, as the leaves were used with the bark in the winter, it must have been an evergreen. The dregs of the bark were also applied to the sore legs of the patient. From these circumstances I am inclined to think that it was the spruce pine (pinus Canadensis), which is used in the same manner by the Indians, and such as have learned of them. Spruce beer is well known to be a powerful antiscorbutic; and the bark of this and of the white pine serves as a cataplasm for wounds and sores.*

* [We may add, that, for the use of Cartier's men, a tree, as big as any oake in France, was spoyled and stripped bare." The narrator of the second voyage speaks of "a kind of tree which they call Hanneda, above three fathom about." We believe the sassafras hardly attains so great size. That it was used for such purposes appears, however, from the following

This remedy presently came into use on board the ships; and its good effects were so surprising, that within one week they were completely healed of the scurvy; and some who had venereal complaints of long standing were also cured by the same means.

The severity of winter having continued four months without intermission, at the return of the sun the season became milder, and in April the ice began to break up. On the third day of May Cartier took possession of the country by erecting a cross thirty-five feet high, on which was hung a shield, bearing the arms of France, with this inscription: FRANCISCUS primus, Dei gratia, FRANCORUM Rex, regnat.

The same day, being a day of festivity,* the two young savages Taignoagni and Domagaia, with Donacona, the chief of the place, came on board the ships, and were partly

passage from Josselyn's "Account of Two Voyages to NewEngland" (3d Mass. Hist. Coll., iii., 257): "The sassafras is no great tree; I have met with some as big as my middle. A decoction of the roots and bark thereof is good for the scurvie, taken some time together, and laying upon the legs the leaves of white hellebore." This corresponds to Cartier's narrative except in the particular of size.-H.]

* [Being Holy Rood day, i. e., the day of the holy cross. -Hakluyt, iii., 229.-H.]