THAP. XXII. THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. 29 



which many a Montagnais war-party has anxiously 

 watched for coming Esquimaux, Mohawks, Iroquois, or 

 Micmacs, and on which, alas ! some fine barques have been 

 wrecked in an attempt to gain one of the entrances to the 

 fair and sheltered haven which they enclose. 



Seven Islands Bay, or, if its old Indian name were 

 preserved, Chi-sche-dec Bay, has many a tale of savage hfe 

 to teU. It has always been a great Montagnais rendezvous, 

 not only on account of its admirable situation, but because 

 it lies between two great lines of Indian communication 

 to the interior, and even across the Peninsula to Hudson's 

 Bay. It is connected by a broad and deep vaUey with 

 Lake St. John, 300 miles to the south-west, through 

 which an Indian winter road formerly ran ; it is also close 

 to the Moisie, which once formed part of a canoe route to 

 Hudson's Bay. 



In the spring and at the approach of winter it is visited 

 by myriads of ducks, geese, and swans ; it was formerly a 

 favourite haunt of the walrus, which, although not now 

 seen even in the Gulf itself, was once common as far up 

 the great Eiver St. Lawrence as the mouth of the 

 Saugenay, and from this animal the ' Pointe aux Yaches,' 

 about a mile below Tadousac, takes its name.* Not 

 improbably the 'fishes like horses' which the Indians 

 described as frequenting the Chi-sche-dec, and which 

 Lescarbot calls hippopotami, were these huge animals. 

 More than 700 Indians in a hundred canoes have 

 assembled in this bay during the present generation ; 

 and the scenes of riot and debauchery equalled the 



* Bouchette, 1832. 



