CAETOGEAPHY TO CHAMPLAIN. 23 



On August 'Ztli he left this port, aud, to vise the words of the narrative, " went to 

 seek the land towards the Cape Rabast, which is distant from the said harbor [i.e., St. 

 Nicholas] about twenty leagues north-north-east and south-south-west. And the next 

 day the wind was contrary ; and because we found no harbors on the said land to the 

 south, we took our way towards the north beyond the aforesaid harbour about ten 

 leagues " This brought them to the bay which he named St. Lawrence (Saincl Laurens), 

 and which few doubt was the region of the present St. Genevieve and Hunting Islands.' 

 This would place Cape Eabast on Anticosti somewhere near Charleton Point of to-day. 

 It could not have been on the mainland,- for he sailed twenty leagues to the south-west 

 after leaving St. Nicholas, and then went to the north to reach St. Lawrence Bay, which 

 itself was only ten leagues beyond St. Nicholas. 



On August 14lh he left St. Lawrence Bay, and went to a cape twenty-five leagues to 

 the west, where the land lay west, a point south-west. This must have been the present 

 North Cape of Anticosti, as distances and directions clearly show. He remarks upon the 

 great number of whales which he saw here. Here the two natives, whom he had taken 

 at Gaspé the previous year, told him that the land on the south was an island (the first 

 hint he had of the fact), on the south of which was a clear passage from Honguedo 

 (Gaspé) up to Canada. The next day, August 15th, he passed the strait and saw 

 the high land of Notre Dame Mountains to the south, and that day he gave to Anticosti 

 the name of Assumption. "West-south-west from its western end, twenty-five leagues 

 distant, he mentions another cape, probably the present Mount Louis.^ He coasted along 

 this southern shore until the next day, when, the wind coming west, he crossed to the 

 northern shore. He now saw the river rapidly narrowing, the shores coming together, 

 and his natives told him that he was at the beginning of the Kingdom of Saguenay, and 

 near the mouth of a river which became fresh further on. Disappointed in the hope of 

 finding here his western passage, he would not ascend the river until he had examined 

 the northern coast between where he now was (near Point des Monts) and his Bay of St. 

 Lawrence, which coast, of course, he had missed by sailing along the southern shore. 



On August 18th ho coasted north-easterly to the Seven Islands, which he named the 

 Round Islands {les ysles Rondes). Just beyond this was a river of fresh water, in which 

 were seen fishes which had the forms of horses ; this was the present Moisie River.^ On 



' De Costa, following Kohl, makes the St. Lawrence the mouth of the St. John, which it clearly was not. This 

 is but one of the many inaccuracies in De Costa's account, which a little care would have avoided. 



- Some maps of the seventeenth century mark C. Rabas on the mainland, though none of the sixteenth show 

 it. They are, without exception, so far as I have found, of those which, with Champlain's topography, use many 

 of Cartier's names. In these respects they copy Lescarbot, who, as will presently be shown, made an effort to 

 retain every name given by Cartier, and made many mistakes in placing them. It is worth noticing that this 

 word " Rabast" is used by Cartier in the narrative ju.st before he uses it as a proper name, " lusques au Cap de 

 Thieiiot qui se rabast, au Nor onaist qui est enuiron sept lieues," etc. (Bref Récit., p. S). It is here used, apparently, 

 in the sense of " lies '' or "has the direction." 



' Or Cape Magdalen. Allefonsce says that the cape is "a very high land," and that it was south of Seven 

 Islands. This would apply best to IMount Louis ; but north-east and west-south-west of the west end of Anticosti, 

 as he also places it, would rather better describe Cape Magdalen. 



* The horses were probably walruses, whicli, as Hind points out in his work on Labrador, were formerly 

 abundant in this region. Hind also refers to the low lands in the vicinity of Seven Islands, as Cartier does. The 

 river must have been either the Moisie or the Manitou, but most probably the former, which is the larger. It 

 could not possibly have been the St. John, as they had a long sail to the eastward after leaving it before sighting 

 Anticosti again. 



