[d^wson] BREST ON THE QUEBEC LABRADOR 13 



a man equally experienced as a captain on sea and on land (as the 

 facts proved) as much so as any one I have ever known either by 

 reputation or otherwise, we pursued our course on the high sea with 

 a fair wind until the 24th of the said month when, at 2 o'clock in 

 the afternoon, when we were near Maida Islands, about the 3rd degree 

 of longitude and the 24th of latitude, there rose a North East wind 

 very strong and vexatious with storm and tempest, separating our 

 vessels and raising the sea with such fury that we thought we were 

 lost and that our destiny was to be wrecked on the spot ; but God, whose 

 will was to reserve our lives for more glorious occasions, showed that 

 He had ordered otherwise in His Divine Justice, because after wind 

 and tempest had frothed out their malice during two hou^s, at four 

 o'clock in the afternoon they ceased and the waves calmed down. Then 

 we commenced to examine the Islands, and we took refuge there to 

 recuperate and rest during three days, as well to wait for some of our 

 vessels which had gone astray, as to repair two of them whose sides 

 had been opened by the great strain they had sustained. 



After three days at that place we raised anchor the 28th, at 

 seven o'clock in the morning and, spreading all sails we steered away 

 towards Isle Verde, but, just as we thought to approach it there came 

 a North wind which, after blowing furiously against us for a day 

 and a half, drove us to the Azores where in the immediate vicinity 

 we met a fleet of Spanish vessels. They attempted to bar our passage, 

 but after a few light attacks we passed along. 



I would describe to you in detail the nature of those Islands, their 

 situation, and the manner of life of the people, but, as I have only 

 undertaken to tell you of New France and of what is going on there 

 I will pass over the rest and will say nothing more than that the 

 climate is fairly agreeable and that they are very fine Islands, well 

 peopled, but of which Spain holds the greater part. I will not, there- 

 fore, say any more on this subject, except that after numerous encoun- 

 ters, fortunes and perils (not here related for the sake of brevity) we 

 arrived at Cape Bellile the twenty-seventh of the month of August, of 

 the year 1605, about three o'clock of the afternoon: this Cape is one 

 of the finest that exists in all the ocean and especially in the northern 

 sea; and you should know that there are two large rocks a gunshot's 

 length into the sea, and then they meet in a crescent on the south 

 side so that one might suppose that nature had set herself to build 

 a port as safe and more beautiful than any which human skill could 

 construct. A league and a half from there is a small town named 

 Surfe, inhabited since a long time by the French. We began to make 



