The northern and southern coasts
were evidently drawing more closely together, and between
them, so the savages averred, lay a great river.
'There is,' wrote Cartier in his narrative, 'between the
southerly lands and the northerly about thirty leagues
distance and more than two hundred fathoms depth. The
said men did, moreover, certify unto us that there was
the way and beginning of the great river of Hochelaga,
and ready way to Canada, which river the farther it went
the narrower it came, even unto Canada, and that then
there was fresh water which went so far upwards that they
had never heard of any man who had gone to the head of
it, and that there is no other passage but with small
boats.'
The announcement that the waters in which he was sailing
led inward to a fresh-water river brought to Cartier not
the sense of elation that should have accompanied so
great a discovery, but a feeling of disappointment. A
fresh-water river could not be the westward passage to
Asia that he had hoped to find, and, interested though
he might be in the rumoured kingdom of Saguenay, it was
with reluctance that he turned from the waters of the
Gulf to the ascent of the great river. Indeed, he decided
not to do this until he had tried by every means to find
the wished-for opening on the coast of the Gulf.
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