possible to pass it. It may have been the usual time, some of which
they gave to fishing or hunting. "In 1647, Father Jean Duquen,
missionary at Tadoussac, ascending the Saguenay, discovered the Lake
St. John, and noted its Indian name, Picouagami, or Flat Lake. He was
the first European who beheld that magnificent expanse of inland
water."--_Vide Transactions, Lit. and His. Soc. of Quebec_, 1867-68,
p. 5.

295. The first of these three rivers, which the traveller will meet as he
passes up the northern shore of the lake, is the Peribonca flowing
from the north-east. The second is the Mistassina, represented by the
Indians as coming from the salt sea. The third is the Chomouchonan,
flowing from the north-west.

296. There was doubtless an Indian trail from the head-waters of the
Mistassina to Mistassin Lake, and from thence to Rupert River, which
flows into the lower part of Hudson's Bay.

297. The salt sea referred to by the Indians was undoubtedly Hudson's Bay.
The discoverer of this bay, Henry Hudson, in the years 1607, 1608, and
1609, was in the northern ocean searching for a passage to Cathay. In
1610, he discovered the strait and bay which now bear his name. He
passed the winter in the southern part of the bay; and the next year,
1611, his sailors in a mutiny forced him and his officers into a
shallop and abandoned them to perish. Nothing was heard of them
afterward. The fame of Hudson's discovery had reached Champlain
before the publication of this volume in 1613. This will be apparent
by comparing Champlain's small map with the TABULA NAUTICA of Hudson,
published in 1612. It will be seen that the whole of the Carte
Geographique de la Nouvelle France of Champlain, on the west of