ey were sailing, was that
of a land called Saghwenay, in which was found Caignetdaze, called by
the white men copper. This gulf led to a great river called Hochelaga.
They had never heard of any one going all the way to the head of it, but
the old men might remember. What the name of the country to the south of
the gulf was, Cartier could not make out. It sounded something like
Kanacdajikaouah. "Kaou-ah" meant great, or large, and Cartier finally
set down the rest of the word as Canada, as nearly as the French
alphabet could spell out the gutturals.

The youths in fact belonged to a tribe in the great confederacy of the
Kanonghsionni, the People of the Long House--or rather the lengthened
house, Kanonsa being the word for house, and "ionni" meaning lengthened
or extended.[1] Five tribes, many generations ago, had united under the
leadership of the great Ayonhwatha--"he who made the wampum belt."[2]
They had adopted weaker tribes when they conquered them, exactly as,
upon the marriage of a daughter, the father built an addition to his
house for the newly wedded couple. The captives had picked up the Breton
patois rather easily, but there was nothing in France which was at all
like an Iroquois bark house, and they had to use the Indian word for it.
Maclou, who had been studying the native language at odd times during
the voyage, found that it had no b, f, m, or v, and on the other hand it
had some noises which were not in any Breton, French or English words,
though the Indian "n" was rather like the French "nque."

Some fifteen leagues from the salt gulf the water became so fresh that
Cartier finally gave up the idea that the channel he had entered might
be a strait. It was still very wide, and if it really was a river it was
the biggest he had ever seen. Three islands now appeared, opposite the
mouth of a swift and deep river which came from the northern territory
called Saghwenay. Cartier sailed up this river for some distance,
finding high steep hills on both sides, and then continued up the great
river to find the chief city of the wilderness empire, if it was an
empire.

No sign had been seen of Norumbega. Presently the keen expectant eye of
Cartier caught sight of something which went far to shake his faith in
that romantic citadel. It was a bold headland on the right, which would
certainly have been chosen by any civilized king in Europe as a site for
a fortress. Those mighty cliffs would almost make other defens