BLANC SABLON 



these stumps. He says: "In such accounts as 

 I have found (except possibly Cartier's) the 

 coasts of the Straits of Belle Isle are described 

 as desolate and bare, and even Carrier, in 1 534, 

 entering the Straits and anchoring at Blanc 

 Sablon, was so impressed with the barrenness 

 that he wrote: ' If the land was as good as the 

 harbors there are it would be an advantage ; but 

 it should not be named the New Land, but [a 

 land of] stones and rocks frightful and ill- 

 shaped, for in all the said north coast I did not 

 see a cart-load of earth, though I landed in 

 many places. Except at Blanc Sablon there is 

 nothing but moss and small stunted woods; in 

 short, I deem, rather than otherwise, that it is 

 the land that God gave to Cain ' ; ^ and again 

 on his second voyage, in 1535, he wrote: 'The 

 whole of the said coast from the Castles as far 

 as here [note by Professor Fernald — "From 

 Chateau Bay as far as Brest, west of Blanc 

 Sablon"] bears east-northeast and west-south- 

 west, ranged with numerous islands and lands 

 all hacked and stony, without any soil or woods, 

 save in some valleys.' ^ And at the present 



' J. P. Baxter, Memoir of Jacques Cartier (1906), p. 86. 

 ' Ibid., p. 130. 



253 



