In the next year Cartier again went forth with three ships.  After confessing and taking the sacrament in the church of St. Malo, the adventurers set sail on Whit Sunday.  Among them was the cup-bearer to the Dauphin, Claudius de Pont-Briand.  As before, the strangers were well received by the Indians, and landed safely at Quebec.  There Cartier left his sailors with instructions to make a fortified camp, while he himself, with the greater part of his men-at-arms and his two Indian captives of the year before, should explore the upper banks of the St. Lawrence, and penetrate, if possible, to the great Indian city of Hochelaga.[2] The Indians, tho outwardly friendly, seem either to have distrusted the French, or else grudged their neighbors at Hochelaga such valuable allies, and would have dissuaded Cartier from his expedition.  When their remonstrances proved useless, the savages tried to work on the fears of the visitors.  Three canoes came floating down the river, each containing a fiendish figure with horns and blackened face.  The supposed demons delivered themselves of a threatening harangue, and then paddled to the shore, and whether to complete the performance, or through honest terror, fell fainting in their boats.  The Indians then explained to Cartier that their god had sent a warning to the presumptuous strangers, bidding them refrain from the intended voyage.  Cartier replied that the Indian god could have no power over those who believed in Christ.  The Indians acquiesced, and even affected to rejoice in the approaching discomfiture of their deity.  Cartier and his followers started on the voyage.

After a fortnight’s journey they came in sight of the natural citadel of Hochelaga, the royal mount, as they fitly called it, which has since given its name to the stately city below.  The site of that city was then filled by a village surrounded by maize fields and strongly fortified after the Iroquois manner.  There the French were received with hospitality and with a reverence which seemed to imply that they were something more than mortal.  The sick were laid before them to be healed, and when Cartier read portions of the Gospel in French, the savages listened reverently to the unknown sounds.  On his return, Cartier found his fort securely palisaded, and decided there to await the winter.  So far all had gone well, but the settlers were soon destined to see the unfavorable side of Canadian life.  The savages, after their fickle nature, began to waver in their friendship.  A worse danger was to come.  Scurvy broke out, and before long twenty-five men had died, and not more than three or four remained well.  At length the leaf of a tree whose virtues were pointed out by the Indians restored the sufferers to health.  When winter disappeared and the river again became navigable, Cartier determined to return.  He was anxious that the French king should learn the wonders of the country from the mouths of its own people.  Accordingly, with a characteristic mixture of caution,