CARTIER'S FIEST VOYAGE. 131 



is North Point, in which case Cape Orleans can only be Cape Kildare. The latter is repre- 

 sented upon the charts as being higher than the former, the Admiralty Chart marking here 

 a hill, with none at North Point which is forty feet high. It would, therefore, be quite 

 conspicuous from the sea, and hence its prominence in Cartier's narrative. 



They landed at Cape of the Savages and left gifts for an Indian they saw there. Then 

 with their ships they coasted along the shore, though we are not told in what direction. 

 The narrative continues as follows (Rel. orig.) : — " That day we coasted along the said 

 land nine or ten leagues, trying to find some harbour, which we could not; for, as I have 

 said before, it is a land low and shallow. We went ashore that day in four places to see 

 the trees which are of the very finest and sweet smelling, and found that they were cedars, 

 pines, white elms, ashes, willows, and many others to us unknown. The lands where 

 there are no woods are very beautiful, and all full of peason [Hakl.], white and red goose- 

 berries, strawberries, blackberries, and wild grain like rye; it seems there to have been 

 sown and plowed. This is a land of the best temperature which it is possible to see, and 

 of great heat, and there are many doves and thrushes and other birds ; it only wants 

 harbours." 



As they landed at North Point and were now sailing along the same land, the latter 

 could only be the north-western coast of Prince Edward Island. In describing this coast, 

 the work ' on the island we have quoted, reads as follows : — " The only tract of any extent 

 bordering on the sea, without settlers, is that between the North Cape and "West Point. 

 There are a number of fine streams of water and ponds in this district ; the soil is rich and 

 the land is covered with lofty trees. . . Its only disadvantage is having no harbour ; but 

 one may always land in a boat if the wind does not blow strongly on the shore." The 

 similarity of these two passages leaves us no opportunity for doubt, and it seems certain 

 that Cartier coasted south-westerly along this shore. His nine or ten leagues would have 

 taken him nearly to the present Cape Wolfe, and it must have been somewhat to the 

 north of it that he passed the night. 



" The next day," July 2nd, the narrative goes on to say, " we saw the land to the 

 north ' of us which joined onto that along which we had ranged, and we knew that it was 

 a bay which had about twenty leagues ■* of depth and as much of breadth. We named the 

 bay St. Lunaire {Sainct Limaire)." The land to the north must have been, of course, the 

 New Brunswick coast ; and as Cartier could have had no knowledge that he had been vis- 

 iting an island, or of the existence of Northumberland Strait, it A'ery naturally seemed to 

 him to join onto that along which he had been coasting. From his position near Cape 

 Wolfe, and indeed from any position whatever in the head of the strait, he would seem 

 landlocked to the south, the bay appearing merely to extend a little deeper in that direction. 



Here then we have the very simple explanation of the Bay of St. Lunario, a bay which 

 various writers from Lescarbot to those of our own day, have either confounded with the 

 River of Boats, with the Miramichi, or have ignored altogether. It is found marked upon 

 all the principal maps of the latter part of the sixteenth century, is usually given a circu- 

 lar form, and is represented of course as being upon the mainland. It has been already 

 pointed out that the correct reading of the word is St. Lunaire or Lunario ; though Cartier 



' Progress and Prospects of P. E. I. 



^ It must be constantly borne in mind that all compass directions are given for magnetic and not true north. 



' Eel. orig. ; ed. 1598 has a blank here. 



