On the 19th of May, 1535, Cartier started again from St. Malo with three ships, the biggest of which was only 120 tons, while the others were respectively 60 and 40 tons capacity.  The crew consisted of about 112 persons, and in addition there were the two Indian youths who had been kidnapped on the previous voyage, and were now returning as interpreters.  Instead, however, of reaching Newfoundland in twenty days, he spent five weeks crossing the Atlantic before he reached his rendezvous with the other ships at Blanc Sablon, on the south coast of Labrador; for the easy access to the Gulf of St. Lawrence through Cabot Strait (between Newfoundland and Cape Breton) was not yet realized.  Once past Anticosti Island, the two Huron interpreters began to recognize the scenery.[4] They now explained to Cartier that he had entered the estuary of a vast river.  This they said he had only to pursue in ships and boats and he would reach “Canada” (which was the name they gave to the district round about Quebec), and that beyond “Canada” no man had ever been known to reach the end of this great water; but, they added, it was fresh water, not salt, and this last piece of information much disheartened Cartier, who feared that he had not, after all, discovered the water route across North America to the Pacific Ocean.  He therefore turned about and once more searched the opposite coast of Labrador most minutely, displaying, as he did so, a seamanship which was little else than marvellous, for it is a very dangerous coast, the seas are very stormy, and the look-out often hampered by a sudden rising of dense fog; there are islands and rocks (some of them almost hidden by the water) and sandbanks; but Cartier made this survey of southern Labrador without an accident.

[Footnote 4:  Anticosti Island received from Cartier the name of “the Island of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin”, in consequence of his having discovered it to be an island on the feast day of that name.  It did not receive its present title until the late seventeenth century.]

At this period, some three hundred and seventy-five years ago, the northern coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and of Anticosti Island swarmed with huge walruses, which were described by Cartier as sea horses that spent the night on land and the day in the water.  They have long since been exterminated by the English and French seamen and settlers.

At last Cartier set sail for the south-west, intending to explore this wonderful river and to reach the kingdom of Canada.  According to his understanding of the Amerindian interpreters, the waters of the St. Lawrence flowed through three great states:  Saguenay, which was the mountainous Gaspe Peninsula and the opposite coast; Canada, Quebec and its neighbourhood; and Hochelaga, the region between Montreal and Lake Ontario.  At the mouth of the Saguenay River, where Tadoussac is now situated, he encountered large numbers of white whales—­the Beluga.