It was called Hochelaga, and the great river
itself, with a wide reach of adjacent country, had borrowed its name.
Thither, with his two young Indians as guides, Cartier resolved to go;
but misgivings seized the guides as the time drew near, while Donnacona
and his tribesmen, jealous of the plan, set themselves to thwart it. The
Breton captain turned a deaf ear to their dissuasions; on which, failing
to touch his reason, they appealed to his fears.
One morning, as the ships still lay at anchor, the French beheld three
Indian devils descending in a canoe towards them, dressed in black and
white dog-skins, with faces black as ink, and horns long as a man's arm.
Thus arrayed, they drifted by, while the principal fiend, with fixed
eyes, as of one piercing the secrets of futurity, uttered in a loud
voice a long harangue. Then they paddled for the shore; and no sooner
did they reach it than each fell flat like a dead man in the bottom of
the canoe. Aid, however, was at hand; for Donnacona and his tribesmen,
rushing pell-mell from the adjacent woods, raised the swooning
masqueraders, and, with shrill clamors, bore them in their arms within
the sheltering thickets. Here, for a full half-hour, the French could
hear them haranguing in solemn conclave. Then the two young Indians whom
Cartier had brought back from France came out of the bushes, enacting a
pantomime of amazement and terror, clasping their hands, and calling on
Christ and the Virgin; whereupon Cartier, shouting from the vessel,
asked what was the matter.
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