so as not to be assailed by such extreme hunger, the rivers abounding in
fish, while birds and wild animals fill the country about. The soil is very
good and well adapted for tillage, if they would but take pains to plant
Indian corn, as all their neighbors do, the Algonquins, Ochastaiguins,
[321] and Iroquois, who are not attacked by such extremes of hunger, which
they provide against by their carefulness and foresight, so that they live
happily in comparison with the Montagnais, Canadians, and Souriquois along
the seacoast. This is in the main their wretched manner of life. The show
and ice last three months there, from January to the 8th of April, when it
is nearly all melted: at the latest, it is only seldom that any is seen at
the end of the latter month at our settlement. It is remarkable that so
much snow and ice as there is on the river, and which is from two to three
fathoms thick, is all melted in less than twelve days. From Tadoussac to
Gaspe, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, and the Great Bay, the snow and ice
continue in most places until the end of May, at which time the entire
entrance of the great river is sealed with ice; although at Quebec there is
none at all, showing a strange difference for one hundred and twenty
leagues in longitude, for the entrance to the river is in latitude 49 deg. 50'
to 51 deg., and our settlement [322] in 46 deg. 40'.


ENDNOTES:

310. The river St. Charles flows from a lake in the interior of the same
name. It was called by the Montagnais, according to Sagard as cited by
Laverdiere, _in loco_, "Cabirecoubat, because it turns and forms
several points." Cartier named it the Holy Cross, or St. Croix,
because he says he arrived there "that day;" that is, the day on which
the exaltation of the Cross is celebrated, the 14th of September,
1535.--_Vide Cartier_, Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 266. The Recollects gave