1500. THE CORTEREALS. 43 



regard to the river St. Lawrence. Even without 

 specific evidence it might safely have been con- 

 cluded that, as a passage to India was the grand 

 object of research, so large an opening as is 

 presented by the mouth of this river could not 

 have escaped examination. Independent however 

 of this general reasoning, the evidence furnished 

 by Ramusio is decisive. In describing the prin- 

 cipal places on that coast, he says that beyond 

 Cabo do Gado (Cattle Cape) whicli is in 54 degrees, 

 it runs two hundred leagues to the westward, to 

 a great river called St. Lawrence, which some con- 

 sidered to be an arm of the sea, and which the 

 Portugueze ascended to the distance of many 

 leagues. 



The extent of this navigation was probably 

 limited to the ascertaining that it was not an arm 

 of the sea, but a large river. As to the name of 

 Canada, which was given to the country on the 

 right of the entrance, it was by many geographers 

 confined to a villao-e situated at the confluence of 

 the Seguenai, and according to most writers ori- 

 ginated in the following circumstance: — When 

 the Portugueze first ascended the river, under the 

 idea that it was a strait, through which a passage 

 to the Indies might be discovered — on arriving at 

 the point where they ascertained that it was 7iot 

 a strait, but a river, they, with all the emphasis of 

 disappointed hopes, exclaimed repeatedly, Ca, 

 nada ! — (here, nothing !) which words caught the 



