On returning to Stadacona, Cartier, by talking with Donnaconna, learnt what showed this land of Saguenay so much talked of by these people, to be undoubtedly the Huron country.  “The straight and good and safest road to it is by the Fleuve (St. Lawrence), to above Hochelaga and by the river which descends from the said Saguenay and enters the said Fleuve (as we had seen); and thence it takes a month to reach.”  This is simply the Ottawa route to Lake Huron used by the Jesuits in the next century.  What they had seen was the Ottawa River entering the St. Lawrence—­from the top of Mount Royal, whence it is visible to-day.  The name Saguenay may possibly be Saginaw,—­the old Saguenam, the “very deep bay on the west shore of Lake Huron,” of Charlevoix, (Book XI.) though it is not necessarily Saginaw Bay itself, as such names shift.  “And they gave to understand that in that country the people are clothed with clothes like us, and there are many peoples in towns and good persons and that they have a great quantity of gold and of red copper.  And they told us that all the land from the said first river to Hochelagea and Saguenay is an island surrounded by streams and the said great river (St. Lawrence); and that after passing Saguenay, said river (Ottawa) enters two or three great lakes of water, very large; after which a fresh water sea is reached, whereof there is no mention of having seen the end, as they have heard from those of the Saguenay; for they told us they had never been there themselves.”  Yet later, in chapter XIX., it is stated that old Donnaconna assured them he had been in the land of the Saguenay, where he related several impossible marvels, such as people of only one leg.  It is to be noted that “the peoples in towns,” who are apparently Huron-Iroquois, are here referred to as “good people,” while the Hochelagans speak of them as “wicked.”  This is explicable enough as a difference of view on distant races with whom they had no contact.  It seems to imply that the “Canada” people were not in such close communication with the town of Hochelaga as to have the same opinions and perhaps the Canada view of the Hurons as good persons was the original view of the early settlers, while the Hochelagans may have had unpleasant later experiences or echo those of the Ottawa Algonquins.  But furthermore they told him of the Richelieu River where apparently it took a month to go with their canoes from Sainte Croix (Stadacona) to a country “where there are never ice nor snow; but where there are constant wars one against another, and there are oranges, almonds, nuts, plums, and other kinds of fruit in great abundance, and oil is made from trees, very good for the cure of diseases; there the inhabitants are clothed and accoutred in skins like themselves.”  This land Cartier considered to be Florida,—­but the point for our present purpose is the frequenting of the Richelieu, Lake Champlain and lands far south of them by the Hochelagans at that period.  At the beginning of the seventeenth century Capt.  John Smith met the canoes of an Iroquois people on the upper part of Chesapeake Bay.