learned from the Indians that the bark of a white spruce tree boiled in water would afford a cure.  The Frenchmen dosed themselves with the Indian remedy, using a whole tree in less than a week, but with such revivifying results that Cartier hailed the discovery as a genuine miracle.  When spring appeared, the remnant of the company, now restored to health and vigor, gladly began their preparations for a return to France.  There was no ardor among them for a further exploration of this inhospitable land.  As there were not enough men to handle all three of the ships, they abandoned one of them, whose timbers were uncovered from the mudbank in 1843, more than three centuries later.  Before leaving Stadacona, however, Cartier decided to take Donnacona, the head of the village, and several other Indians as presents to the French King.  It was natural enough that the master-pilot should wish to bring his sovereign some impressive souvenir from the new domains, yet this sort of treachery and ingratitude was unpardonable.  Donnacona and all these captives but one little Indian maiden died in France, and his people did not readily forget the lesson of European duplicity.  By July the expedition was back in the harbor of St. Malo, and Cartier was promptly at work preparing for the King a journal of his experiences.

Cartier’s account of his voyage which has come down to us contains many interesting details concerning the topography and life of the new land.  The Malouin captain was a good navigator as seafaring went in his day, a good judge of distance at sea, and a keen observer of landmarks.  But he was not a discriminating chronicler of those things which we would now wish to understand—­for example, the relationship and status of the various Indian tribes with which he came into contact.  All manner of Indian customs are superficially described, particularly those which presented to the French the aspect of novelty, but we are left altogether uncertain as to whether the Indians at Stadacona in Cartier’s time were of Huron or Iroquois or Algonquin stock.  The navigator did not describe with sufficient clearness, or with a due differentiation of the important from the trivial, those things which ethnologists would now like to know.

It must have been a disappointment not to be able to lay before the King any promise of great mineral wealth to be found in the new territory.  While at Hochelaga Cartier had gleaned from the savages some vague allusions to sources of silver and copper in the far northwest, but that was all.  He had not found a northern Eldorado, nor had his quest of a new route to the Indies been a whit more fruitful.  Cartier had set out with this as his main motive, but had succeeded only in finding that there was no such route by way of the St. Lawrence.  Though the King was much interested in his recital of courage and hardships, he was not fired with zeal for spending good money in the immediate equipping of another expedition to these inhospitable shores.