[lighthall] HOCHELAGANS AND MOHAWKS 205 



and Saguenay is an island surrounded by streams and the said great river 

 (St. Lawrence) ; and that after passing Saguenay, said river (Ottawa) 

 enters tivo or three great lakes of ivater. very large ; after which a fresh 

 water sea is reached, whereof there is no mention of having seen the end, 

 as they have heard from those of the Saguenay ; for they told us they 

 had never been there themselves^ Yet later, in chaj^ter XIX., it is stated 

 that old Donnaconna assured them he had been in the land of the 

 Saguenay, where he related several impossible marvels, such as people of 

 only one leg. It is to be noted that " the peoples in towns," who are 

 apparently Huron-Iroquois, are hei-e referred to as " good people," while 

 the Hochelagans speak of them as " wicked." This is explicable enough 

 as a difference of view on distant races with whom they had no contact. 

 It seems to imply that the " Canada " people were not in such close com- 

 munication with the town of Hochelaga as to have the same opinions and 

 perhaps the Canada view of the Hurons as good persons was the original 

 view of the early settlers, while the Hochelagans may have had unpleas- 

 ant later experiences or echo those of the Ottawa Algonquins. But 

 furthermore they told him of the Eichelieu River where apparently it 

 took a month to go with their canoes from Sainte Croix (Stadacona) to 

 a country " where there are never ice nor snow ; but where tliere are 

 constant wars one against another, and there are oranges, almonds, nuts, 

 plums, and other kinds of fruit in great abundance, and oil is made from 

 trees, ver}- good for the cure of diseases ; there the inhabitants are 

 clothed and accoutred in skins like themselves." This land Cartier con- 

 sidered to be Florida, — but the point for our present purpose is the 

 frequenting of the Eichelieu, Lake Champlain and lands far south of 

 them by the Hochelagans at that period. At the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century Capt. John Smith met the canoes of an Iroquois 

 people on the upper part of Chesaj^eake Bay. 



We may now. draw some conclusions. Originally the population of 

 the St. Lawrence valley seems to have been occupied by Algonquins, as 

 these i^eople surrounded it on all sides. A question I would like to see 

 investigated is whether any of these built villages and grew corn here, as 

 did some of the Algonquins of the New England coast and those of 

 Allumette Island on the Ottawa. This might explain some of the 

 deserted Indian clearings which the early Jesuits noted along the shore 

 of the rivei', and of which Champlain, in 1611, used one of about 60 acres 

 at Place Eoyale, Montreal. Cartier, it is seen, expressly explains some of 

 them to be Huron-Iroquois clearings cultivated under his own obser- 

 vation. The known Algonquins of the immediate region were all 

 nomadic. 



In 1534 we have, from below Stadacona (Quebec) to above Hoche- 

 laga (Montreal), and down the Eichelieu Eiver to Lake Champlain, 

 the valley in possession of a Huron-Iroquois race, dominated by 



