Hauing considered the place, and finding it fit for our purpose, our Captaine withdrew himselfe on purpose to returne to our ships.  After we were come with our boats vnto our ships againe, our Captaine cause our barks to be made readie to goe on land in the said Iland, to note the trees that in shew seemed so faire, and to consider the nature and qualitie of it:  which things we did, and found it full of goodly trees like to ours.  Also we saw many goodly Vines, a thing not before of vs seene in those countries, and therefore we named it Bacchus Iland.  It is in length about twelue leagues, in sight very pleasant, but full of woods, no part of it manured, vnless it be in certaine places, where a few cottages be for Fishers dwellings as before we haue said....

The next day being the 19 of September we hoysed saile, and with our Pinnesse and two boates departed to goe vp the riuer with the flood, where on both shores of it we beganne to see as goodly a countrey as possibly can with eye seene, all replenished with very goodly trees, and Vines laden as full of grapes as could be all along the riuer, which rather seemed to haue bin planted by mans hand than otherwise.  True it is, that because they are not dressed and wrought as they should be, their bunches of grapes are not so great nor sweete as ours....  From the nineteenth vntill the eight and twentieth of September, we sailed vp along the saide riuer, neuer losing one houre of time, all which time we saw as goodly and pleasant a countrey as possibly can be wished for....

The next day our Captaine seeing for that time it was not possible for our Pinesse to goe on any further, he caused our boates to be made readie, and as much munition and victuals to be put in them, as they could well beare:  he departed with them, accompanyed with many Gentlemen, that is to say, Claudius of Ponte Briand, Cupbearer to the Lorde Dolphin of France, Charles of Pommeraye, Iohn Gouion, Iohn Powlet, with twentie and eight Mariners:  and Mace Iallobert, and William Briton, who had the charge vnder the Captaine of the other two ships, to goe vp as farre as they could into that riuer:  we sayled with good and prosperous weather vntill the second of October, on which day we came to the towne of Hochelaga, [Montreal] distant from the place where we had left our Pinnesse fiue and fortie leagues.

    [1] From a letter by Cartier, of which a translation exists in
    Hakluyt’s “Principal Navigations,” etc.  Printed in Hart’s “American
    History Told by Contemporaries.”

    [2] The Gulf of St. Lawrence.

SEARCHES FOR “THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA”

(1530-1540)

THE ACCOUNT BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES[1]

In 1513, a hundred and seven years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Balboa scaled the continental backbone at Darien and unfurled the flag of Spain by the waters of the Pacific.  With wondrous zeal did Spanish explorers beat up and down the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, seeking for an opening through.  Cortez had no sooner secured possession of Mexico, after his frightful slaughter of the Aztecs, than he began pushing out to the west and northwest—­along the “upper coasts of the South Sea”—­in search of the strait which Montezuma told him existed.