ds
the west, till they reached a place which Cartier declared to be one of
the finest harbours of the world, and which he called Jacques Cartier
Harbour. This is probably the water now known as Cumberland Harbour.
The forbidding aspect of the northern shore and the adverse winds
induced Cartier to direct his course again towards the south, to the
mainland, as he thought, but really to the island of Newfoundland; and
so he now turned back with his boats to rejoin the ships. The company
gathered safely again at Brest on Sunday, June 14, and Cartier caused a
mass to be sung.

During the week spent in exploring the north shore, Cartier had not
been very favourably impressed by the country. It seemed barren and
inhospitable. It should not, he thought, be called the New Land, but
rather stones and wild crags and a place fit for wild beasts. The soil
seemed worthless. 'In all the north land,' said he, 'I did not see a
cartload of good earth. To be short, I believe that this was the land
that God allotted to Cain.' From time to time the explorers had caught
sight of painted savages, with heads adorned with bright feathers and
with bodies clad in the skins of wild beasts. They were roving upon the
shore or passing in light boats made of bark among the island channels
of the coast. 'They are men,' wrote Cartier, 'of an indifferent good
stature and bigness, but wild and unruly. They wear their hair tied on
the top like a wreath of hay and put a wooden pin within it, or any
other such thing instead of a nail, and with them they bind certain
birds' feathers. They are clothed with beasts' skins as well the men as
women, but that the women go somewhat straighter and closer in their
garments than the men do, with their waists girded. They paint
themselves with certain roan colours. Their boats are made with the
bark of birch trees, with the which they fish and take great store of
seals, and, as far as we could understand since our coming thither,
that is not their habitation, but they come from the mainland out of
hotter countries to catch the said seals and other necessaries for
their living.'

There has been much discussion as to these savages. It has been thought
by some that they were a southern branch of the Eskimos, by others that
they were Algonquin Indians who had wandered eastward from the St
Lawrence region. But the evidence goes to show that they belonged to
the lost tribe of the 'Red Indians' of Newfoundland, the race whi