passed the Trois Rivieres, a very beautiful country, covered with a growth
of fine trees. From this place to St. Croix is a distance of fifteen
leagues. At the mouth of the above-named river [331] there are six islands,
three of which are very small, the others some fifteen to sixteen hundred
paces long, very pleasant in appearance. Near Lake St. Peter, [332] some
two leagues up the river, there is a little fall not very difficult to
pass. This place is in latitude 46 deg., lacking some minutes. The savages of
the country gave us to understand that some days' journey up this river
there is a lake, through which the river flows. The length of the lake is
ten days' journey, when some falls are passed, and afterwards three or four
other lakes of five or six days' journey in length. Having reached the end
of these, they go four or five leagues by land, and enter still another
lake, where the Sacque has its principal source. From this lake, the
savages go to Tadoussac. [333] The Trois Rivieres extends forty days'
journey of the savages. They say that at the end of this river there is a
people, who are great hunters, without a fixed abode, and who are less than
six days' journey from the North Sea. What little of the country I have
seen is sandy, very high, with hills, covered with large quantities of pine
and fir on the river border; but some quarter of a league inland the woods
are very fine and open, and the country level. Thence we continued our
course to the entrance of Lake St. Peter, where the country is exceedingly
pleasant and level, and crossed the lake, in two, three, and four fathoms
of water, which is some eight leagues long and four wide. On the north
side, we saw a very pleasant river, extending some twenty leagues into the
interior, which I named St. Suzanne; on the south side, there are two, one
called Riviere du Pont, the other, Riviere de Gennes, [334] which are very
pretty, and in a fine and fertile country. The water is almost still in the
lake, which is full of fish. On the north bank, there are seen some slight
elevations at a distance of some twelve or fifteen leagues from the lake.
After crossing the lake, we passed a large number of islands of various