"What shall I bring thee then, from the world's end, Reine Margot?"
asked Alain Maclou. The small girl in the deep fireside recess of a
Picardy castle-hall considered it gravely.
"There should be three gifts," she said at last, "for so it always is in
Mère Bastienne's stories. I will have the shoes of silence, the girdle
of fortune, and diamonds from Norumbega. Tell me again about Norumbega."
"Nay, little one, I must go, to see after the lading of the ship. Fare
thee well for this time," and the young man bent his tall head above the
hand of his seven-year-old lady. The graceful, quick-witted and
imaginative child had been his pet and he her loyal servant these three
years. It was understood between them that she was really the Queen of
France, barred from her throne by the Salic Law that forbade any woman
to rule that country in her own right. Some day he was to discover for
her a kingdom beyond seas, in which she alone should reign. Of all the
tales, marvelous, fanciful or tragic, which he or her old nurse had told
her, she liked best the legend of Norumbega, the city in the wilderness
which no explorer had ever found. Wherever French, Breton or English
fishermen had become at all familiar with the Indians they heard of a
city great and populous, with walls of stone, ruled by a king richer
than any of their chiefs, but no two stories agreed on the location.
Some had heard that it was an island, west of Cape Breton; others that
it was on the bank of a great river to the southward. Maclou had seen at
a fair one of the Indians brought to France ten years before in the
_Dauphine_, and spoken to him. According to this Indian the chief town
of his people was on an island in the mouth of a river where high gray
walls of rock arose, longer and statelier than the walls of Dieppe. In
describing these walls the Indian did not indeed say that they encircled
the city, but no Frenchman could have imagined rock palisades built for
any other purpose. On the other hand Maclou knew a pilot who had been
caught in a storm and blown down the coast southwest from the fisheries,
and he and his crew had seen, from ten or twelve leagues out at sea,
white and shining battlements on the crest of a mountain far inland.
When they asked their Indian guides what city it was the slaves trembled
and showed fear, and declared that none of their people ever went there.
Had only one man seen the glittering walls it might have been a vision,
but they had all seen.
If Norumbega really existed, the expedition of Jacques Cartier in 1535
seemed likely to find it. He had made a voyage the year before with two
ships and a hundred and twenty men, of whom Maclou had been one. Not
being prepared to remain through the winter, they had been obliged to
turn back before they had done more than discover a magnificent bay
which Cartier named the Bay of Chaleur on account of the July heat, and
a squarish body of water west of Cape Breton which seemed to be marked
out on their map as the Square Gulf. Now the veteran of Saint Malo had
instructions to explore this gulf and see whether any strait existed
beyond it which might lead to Cathay. On general principles he was to
find out how great and of what nature the country was. The maps of the
New World were fairly complete in their outline of the southern
continent and islands discovered by Spain; it was hoped that this
expedition might give an equally definite outline to the northern coast.
Cartier had on his previous voyage caught two young Indians who had come
from far inland to fish, and brought them back to France. They had since
learned enough Breton to make themselves understood, and from what they
said it seemed to Cartier that there might be a far greater land west of
the fisheries than the mapmakers had supposed. The King, on the other
hand, was inclined to hope that the lands already found were islands,
among which might be the coveted route to Cathay. Maclou bent his brows
over the map and pondered. If Norumbega were found it would be the key
to the situation, for the people of a great inland city would know, as
the people of Mexico did, all about their country. Did it exist, or was
it a fairy tale, born of mirage or a lying brain?
On Whitsunday the sixteenth of May, Carrier and his men went in solemn
procession to the Cathedral Church of Saint Malo, confessed themselves,
received the sacrament, and were blessed by the Bishop in his robes of
state, standing in the choir of the ancient sanctuary. On the following
Wednesday they set sail with three ships and one hundred and ten men.
Cartier had been careful to explain to the King that it would be of no
use to send an expedition to those northern shores unless it could live
through the winter on its own supplies. The summer was brief, the winter
severe, and there was no possibility of living on the country while
exploring it. As such voyages went, the three ships were well
provisioned. Late in July they came through the Strait of Belle Isle,
and on Saint Laurence's Day, August 10, found themselves in a small bay
which Cartier named for that saint. Rounding the western point of a
great island the little fleet came into a great salt water bay.
"I believe," said Cartier to Maclou as the flagship sailed gaily on over
the sunlit sparkling waves, "that this must be the place from which all
the whales in the world come." The great creatures were spouting and
diving all around the fleet, frolicking like unwieldy puppies. Every one
was alert for what might be discovered next. None were more lively and
full of pleased expectation than the two Indian youths. Captives had
been taken by the white men before, but none had ever returned. Their
people were undoubtedly mourning them as dead, but would presently see
them not only alive but fat and happy. They had crossed the great waters
in the white men's canoe, and lived in the white men's villages, and
learned their talk. They had been christened Pierre and Kadoc, French
tongues finding it hard to pronounce their former names.
Cartier called them to him and began to ask questions. He learned that
the northern coast of the gulf, along which they were sailing, was that
of a land called Saghwenay, in which was found Caignetdaze, called by
the white men copper. This gulf led to a great river called Hochelaga.
They had never heard of any one going all the way to the head of it, but
the old men might remember. What the name of the country to the south of
the gulf was, Cartier could not make out. It sounded something like
Kanacdajikaouah. "Kaou-ah" meant great, or large, and Cartier finally
set down the rest of the word as Canada, as nearly as the French
alphabet could spell out the gutturals.
The youths in fact belonged to a tribe in the great confederacy of the
Kanonghsionni, the People of the Long House--or rather the lengthened
house, Kanonsa being the word for house, and "ionni" meaning lengthened
or extended.[1] Five tribes, many generations ago, had united under the
leadership of the great Ayonhwatha--"he who made the wampum belt."[2]
They had adopted weaker tribes when they conquered them, exactly as,
upon the marriage of a daughter, the father built an addition to his
house for the newly wedded couple. The captives had picked up the Breton
patois rather easily, but there was nothing in France which was at all
like an Iroquois bark house, and they had to use the Indian word for it.
Maclou, who had been studying the native language at odd times during
the voyage, found that it had no b, f, m, or v, and on the other hand it
had some noises which were not in any Breton, French or English words,
though the Indian "n" was rather like the French "nque."
Some fifteen leagues from the salt gulf the water became so fresh that
Cartier finally gave up the idea that the channel he had entered might
be a strait. It was still very wide, and if it really was a river it was
the biggest he had ever seen. Three islands now appeared, opposite the
mouth of a swift and deep river which came from the northern territory
called Saghwenay. Cartier sailed up this river for some distance,
finding high steep hills on both sides, and then continued up the great
river to find the chief city of the wilderness empire, if it was an
empire.
No sign had been seen of Norumbega. Presently the keen expectant eye of
Cartier caught sight of something which went far to shake his faith in
that romantic citadel. It was a bold headland on the right, which would
certainly have been chosen by any civilized king in Europe as a site for
a fortress. Those mighty cliffs would almost make other defenses
needless. Yet the heights were occupied by nothing more than a wooden
village, which the interpreters called Stadacona, saying that their
chief, Daghnacona, was its ruler. Shouts arose from the water's edge as
some one among the excited Indians recognized on the deck of a great
winged canoe their own lost countrymen. The interpreters answered with
joyous whoops. A dozen canoes came paddling out, filled with young
warriors, and a rapid interchange of guttural Indian talk went on
between Pierre and Kadoc and their kinfolk. The enthusiasm rose to a
still higher pitch when strings of beads of all colors were handed down
to the Indians in the canoes, and presently Daghnacona himself appeared
to welcome the white men to his country, with dignified Indian eloquence
and an escort of twelve canoes. This was clearly a good place to stop
and refit the ships. Cartier took his fleet into a little river not far
away, and prepared to learn all he could of the country before going on.
The information he got from Daghnacona was not encouraging. This was
not, it appeared, the chief town of the country. That was many miles up
the river, and was called Hochelaga. It would not be safe for the white
men to go there. Their ships might be caught between ice-floes, and the
falling snow would blind and bewilder them. Cartier glanced at the blue
autumn sky and smiled. No one is quicker than an Indian to read faces.
Daghnacona saw that the white chief intended to go, all the same.
Cartier decided to leave the larger ships where they were, and proceed
up the great river to Hochelaga with a forty-ton pinnace, two boats, and
about fifty men. Early in the morning, before he was quite ready to
start, a canoe came down stream, in which were three weird figures
resembling the devils in a medieval miracle-play. Their faces were jet
black, they were clothed in hairy skins, and on their heads were great
horns. As they passed the ships they kept up a monotonous and appalling
chant, and as their canoe touched the beach all three fell upon their
faces. Indians, rushing out of the woods, dragged them into a thicket,
and a great hubbub followed, not a word of which was understood by the
white men, for the Indian interpreters were there with the rest.
Presently the interpreters appeared on the beach yelling with fright.
"Pierre! Kadoc!" the annoyed commander called from his quarter-deck,
"what is all this hullabaloo about?"
"News!" gasped Pierre. "News from Canghyenye! He says white men not come
to Hochelaga!" And Kadoc chimed in eagerly, "Not go! Not go!"
"Coudouagny?" Cartier repeated to Maclou, completely mystified. "Who can
that be?"
Further questioning drew out information which sounded as if Coudouagny,
or Canyengye, were a tribal god. In reality this was the word for "elder
brother." In that region it was applied to the Tekarihokens, the eldest
of the five nations in the league of the Long House. They were afterward
dubbed by their enemies the Mohawks or man-eaters, and the fear for the
white men's safety which the interpreters expressed may very well have
been quite genuine.
But the Breton captain had not come across the Atlantic to give up his
plans for fear of an Indian god, if it was a god, and his reply to the
warning was to the effect that Coudouagny must be a numskull. More
seriously he explained to the interpreters that although he had not
himself spoken with the God of his people his priests had, and he fully
trusted in the power of his God to protect him. The party set forth at
the appointed time.
In about two weeks they reached the greatest Indian town that any of
them had ever seen. It was not the walled city of the Norumbega legend,
but both Maclou and Cartier had ceased to expect anything of that kind.
The Indian guides had said that the town was near, and all were dressed
in their best. A thousand Indians, men, women and children, were on the
shore to receive them, and the commander at the head of his little troop
marched into Hochelaga to pay their respects to the chief.
The Indian city was inhabited by several thousand people, living in
wigwams about a hundred and fifty feet long by fifty wide, built of bark
over a frame of wood, and arranged around a large open space. The whole
was surrounded by a stockade of three rows of stakes twelve or fifteen
feet high. The middle row was set straight, the other two rows five or
six feet from it and inclining toward it like wigwam-poles. The three
rows, meeting at the top, were lashed to a ridgepole. Half way down and
again at the bottom cross-braces were fastened diagonally, making a
strong wall. Around the inside, near the top, was a gallery reached by
ladders, on which were piles of stones to be thrown at invaders. Instead
of being square, or irregular with many angles and outstanding towers,
like a French walled town, it was perfectly round.
The interpreters afterward explained that each of the houses was
occupied by several families, as the head of each house shared his
shelter with his kinfolk. When a daughter was married she brought her
husband home, as a rule, and her father added an apartment to his house
by the simple device of taking out the end wall of bark and building on
another section. Each household had its own stone hearth, the smoke
escaping through openings in the roof. A common passage-way led through
the middle of the house. On the sides were rows of bunks covered with
furs. Weapons hung on the walls, and meat broth or messes of corn and
beans simmered fragrantly in their kettles. Some of these long houses
held fifty or sixty people each, and there were over fifty of them in
all. In that climate, with warlike neighbors, the advantage of such an
organized community over scattered single wigwams was very great. All
around were cleared fields dotted with great yellow pumpkins, where corn
and beans had grown during the past summer.
To the sons of Norman and Breton peasants it was evident that these
fields had not been cultivated for centuries, like those of France, any
more than the wall around Hochelaga was the work of stone-masons toiling
under generations of feudal lords. If this were the chief city of these
people, they had no Norumbega. But it was very picturesque in its sylvan
barbaric way, among the limitless forests of scarlet and gold and
crimson and deep green, which stretched away over the mountains. Upon
the rude cots in the wigwams as they passed, Cartier's men saw rich and
glossy furs of the silver fox, the beaver, the mink and the marten,
which princesses might be proud to wear. Curious bead-work there was
also on the quivers, pouches, moccasins and belts of these wild people,
done in white and purple shell beads made and polished by hand and not
more than a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of an inch thick.
These were sewn in patterns of animals, birds, fishes and other things
not unlike the emblems of old families in France. Belts of these beads
were worn by those who seemed to be the chief men of Hochelaga.
Porcupine quills were also used in embroidery and head-bands.
The people thronged into the open central space, which was about a
stone's throw across, some carrying their sick, some their children,
that the strangers might touch them for healing or for good fortune. The
old chief, who was called Agouhana, was brought in, helpless from
paralysis, upon a deerskin litter. When Cartier understood that his
touch was supposed to have some mysterious magic he rubbed the old man's
helpless limbs with his own hands, read from his service-book the first
chapter of the Gospel of Saint John and other passages, and prayed that
the people who listened might come to know the true faith. Then, after
beads, rings, brooches and other little gifts had been distributed, the
trumpets blew, and the white men took their leave. Before they returned
to their boats the Indians guided them to the top of the hill which rose
behind the town, from which the surrounding country could be seen.
Cartier named it Montreal--the Royal Mountain.
[Illustration: "CARTIER READ FROM HIS SERVICE-BOOK."--_Page_ 176]
It was now the first week in October, and the rapids in the river above
Hochelaga blocked further exploration with a sailing vessel. As for
going on foot, that was out of the question with winter so near. The
party returned to Stadacona and went into winter quarters. While they
had been gone their comrades had built a palisaded fort beside the
little river where the ships lay moored. They were hardly settled in
this rude shelter before snow began to fall, and seemed as if it would
go on forever, softly blanketing the earth with layer on layer of cold
whiteness. It was waist-deep on the level; the river was frozen solid;
the drifts were above the sides of the ships, and the ice was four
inches thick on the bulwarks. The glittering armor of the ice incased
masts, spars, ropes, and fringed every line of cordage with icicles of
dazzling brightness. Never was such cold known in France. Maclou
thought, whimsically, while his teeth chattered beside the fire, of a
tale he had once told Marguerite of the palace of the Frost King. That
fierce monarch, and not the guileless Indian chief, was the foe they
would have to fight for this kingdom.
Their provisions were those of any ship sent on a voyage into unknown
lands in those days--dried and salted meat and fish, flour and meal to
be made into cakes or porridge, dried pease, dried beans. For a time the
Indians visited them, in the bitterest weather, but in December even
this source of a game supply was cut off, for they came no more. The
dreaded scurvy broke out, and before long there were hardly a dozen of
the whole company able to care for the sick. Besides the general misery
they were tormented by the fear that if the savages knew how feeble they
were the camp might be attacked and destroyed. Cartier told those who
had the strength, to beat with sticks on the sides of their bunks, so
that prowling Indians might believe that the white men were busy at
work.
But the wild folk were both shrewder and more friendly than the French
believed. Their medicine-men told Cartier one day that they cured scurvy
by means of a drink made from the leaves and bark of an evergreen.
Squaws presently came with a birch-bark kettle of this brew and it
proved to have such virtues that the sick were cured of scurvy, and in
some cases of other diseases which they had had for years. Cartier
afterward wrote in his report that they boiled and drank within a week
all the foliage of a tree, which the Indians called aneda or tree of
life, as large as a full-grown oak.[3] Many had died before the remedy
was learned, and when the weather allowed the fleet to sail for home,
there were only men enough for two of the ships. The Indians had told of
other lands where gold and rubies were found, of a nation somewhere in
the interior, white like the French, of people with but one leg apiece.
But as it was, the country was a great country, and well worth the
attention of the King of France. Leaving the cross and the fleur-de-lis
to mark the place of their discovery, the expedition sailed for France,
and on July 16, 1536, anchored once more in the port of Saint Malo.
"And there is no Norumbega really?" asked little Margot rather
dolefully, when the story of the adventure had been told. "And your hair
is all gray, here, on the side."
"None the less I have gifts for thee, little queen, and such as no Queen
of France hath in her treasury." Maclou's smile, though a trifle grave,
had a singular charm as he opened his wallet. Margot nestled closer, her
eyes bright with excitement.
The first gift was a little pair of shoes of deer-skin dyed green and
embroidered with pearly white beads on a ground of black and red French
brocade. They had no heels and no heavy leather soles, and were lined
with soft white fur; and they fitted the little maid's foot exactly.
The second gift was a girdle of the same beads, purple and white, in a
pattern of queer stiff sprays. "That," said Alain Maclou, "is the Tree
of Life that cured us all of the sickness."
The third was a cluster of long slender crystals set in a fragment of
rock the color of a blush rose.[4]
"'Tis a magic stone, sweetheart. Keep it in the sunshine on thy
window-ledge, and when summer is over 't will be white as snow. Leave it
in a snowbank, or in a cellar under wet moss, and 't will turn again to
rose-color. This I have seen. In the winter nights the Frost King hangs
his ice-diamonds on every twig and rope and eave, and when they shine in
the red sunrise they look like these crystals. And I have seen all the
sky from the zenith to the horizon at midnight full of leaping rose-red
flames above such a world of ice. 'Tis very beautiful there, Reine
Margot, and fit kingdom for a fairy queen."
Marguerite turned the strange quartz rock about in her small hands with
something like awe.
"And the shoes are shoes of silence, for an Indian can go and come in
them so softly that even a rabbit does not hear. They were made by a
kind old squaw who would take no pay, and a young warrior gave me the
wampum belt, and I found the stone one day while I was hunting in the
forest, so that all three of thy gifts are really gifts from Norumbega."
"I think--I'm rather glad it is not a real city," said Margot with a
long breath. "It is more like fairyland, just as it is,--and the Frost
King and the terrible sickness are the two ogres, and the good medicine
man is a white wizard. It is a very beautiful kingdom, Alain, and I
think you are the Prince in disguise!"