CHAP. XXVIII. EXPEDITION OF ROBERVAL. 119 



Mr. Price mentions an interesting discovery made by 

 one of tlie missionaries, wliose name lie does not give, of 

 an old French fort, high up the Saugenay, or perhaps on 

 j\listassiuni Eiver ; the remains of an entrenchment and a 

 strono- stockade were visible, but Avhat was far more 

 interesting were two French cannon 2^ feet long, and 

 some tombstones much broken, by which the missionary 

 made out that they belonged to the sixteenth centmy at 

 an early date. 



It is well known tliat the Sieur Eober\al, ' Lieutenant- 

 Greneral for the King in the countries of Canada, Saugenay, 

 and Hochelaga,' started on a voyage of discovery up 

 the Saugenay on June 5, 1543, in eight vessels havhig 

 on board seventy persons. The fate of this expedition is 

 still a mystery. May not these tombstones of the sixteentli 

 century, far back in the great wilderness, be the memorials 

 of the fate of Roberval and his companions? 



Pere Arnaud, in his evidence with regard to the Mon- 

 tagnais tribes on the coast of the estuary and gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, confirms the opinion that it* is impossible to 

 wean them from the wild excitement of a life in the 

 woods. Notwitlistanding all the efforts of the missionaries, 

 those engaged in cultivating the soil are lessening in 

 number, and each year sees many of them return to their 

 Inmtiiig-grounds. They care for no other pursuit than 

 fishing and hunting ; they Hve and die on their hunting- 

 grounds, and seem indisposed to rise in the scale of 



represents a quarter of a pound of powder, and next day one pound. The 

 Indian sells Lis furs for so many castors, and tlie more he gets the more value 

 he fancies he has obtained for his fiu's : but as the value of the castors is 

 changed to suit the rv.nipaiiy's purpose, the poor Indian is ' taken in ' 

 without his heino- aware of it. 



