other three, landed his stores, built two forts at Cap Rouge, above and below, and then started off with a few of his men and two boats to revisit the country of Hochelaga.  Here he intended to examine the three rapids or “saults”—­interruptions to the navigation of the St. Lawrence—­which he had observed on his previous journey, and which were later named the La Chine Rapids (in the belief that they were obstacles on the river route to China).  But these falls proved insuperable obstacles to his boats, and he gave up any further idea of westward exploration, returned to his forts and ships near Quebec, and there laid the foundations of a fortified town, which he called Charlesbourg Royal.  Here he spent a very difficult winter, the Hurons in the neighbourhood becoming increasingly hostile, and at last, when the spring came, as he had received no relief from France, he took to his three ships, abandoned Charlesbourg Royal (having probably to do some fighting before he could get safely away) and thence sailed for France.  Off the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland he met the other ships of the expedition which was to have occupied Canada for France.  These were under the command of the Sieur de Roberval, a French nobleman, who had really been made head of the whole enterprise, with Cartier as a subordinate officer, but who, the year before, had allowed Cartier to go off to Canada and prepare the way, promising to follow immediately.  The interview between Cartier and Roberval, near where the capital of Newfoundland (St. John’s) now stands, was a stormy one.  Roberval ordered Cartier to return at once to Charlesbourg and await his arrival.  However, in the middle of the night which followed this interview, Cartier took advantage of a favourable wind and set sail for France, arriving soon afterwards at St. Malo.

But Roberval arrived at Charlesbourg (going the roundabout way through the straits of Belle Isle, for Cartier had told him nothing of the convenient passage through Cabot Strait), and there spent the winter of 1542-3, sending his ships back to France.  This winter was one of horrors.  Roberval was a headstrong, passionate man, perfectly reckless of human life.  He maintained discipline by ferocious sentences, putting many of his men in irons, whipping others cruelly, women as well as men, and shooting those who seemed the most rebellious.  Even the Indians were moved to pity, and wept at the sight of the woes of these unhappy French men and women under the control of a bloodthirsty tyrant, and many of them dying of scurvy, or miserably weak from that disease.[10]