All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas washing the western coast of North America; Verazzano, a Florentine, in the service of France, had explored the coast of the United States, and a good deal was known when Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, steps upon the scene and wins for his country a large tract of land about the river St. Lawrence. His object was to find a way across America to Cathay. With two little ships of sixty tons and sixty-one "chosen men," Cartier left St. Malo on 20th April 1534. With prosperous weather he tells us he made the coast of Newfoundland in three weeks, which would mean sailing over one hundred miles a day. He was a little too early in the season, for the easterly winds which had helped him on his way had blocked the east coast of the island with Arctic ice. Having named the point at which he first touched land Cape Bona Vista, he cruised about till, the ice having melted, he could sail down the straits of Belle Isle between the mainland of Labrador and Newfoundland, already discovered by Breton fishermen. Then he explored the now familiar Gulf of St. Lawrence--the first European to report on it. All through June the little French ships sailed about the Gulf, darting across from island to island and cape to cape. Prince Edward Island appealed to him strongly. "It is very pleasant to behold," he tells us. "We found sweet-smelling trees as cedars, yews, pines, ash, willow. Where the ground was bare of trees it seemed very fertile and was full of wild corn, red and white gooseberries, strawberries, and blackberries, as if it had been cultivated on purpose." It now grew hotter, and Cartier must have been glad of a little heat. He sighted Nova Scotia and sailed by the coast of New Brunswick, without naming or surveying them. He describes accurately the bay still called Chaleur Bay: "We named this the Warm Bay, for the country is warmer even than Spain and exceedingly pleasant." They sailed up as far as they could, filled with hope that this might be the long-sought passage to the Pacific Ocean. Hope Cape they named the southern point, but they were disappointed by finding only a deep bay, and to-day, by a strange coincidence, the point opposite the northern shore is known as Cape Despair--the Cap d'Espoir of the early French mariners. Sailing on to the north amid strong currents and a heavy sea, Cartier at last put into a shelter (Gaspe Bay). Here, "on the 24th of July, we made a great cross thirty feet high, on which we hung up a shield with three fleurs-de-lis, and inscribed the cross with this motto: 'Vive le roi de France.' When this was finished, in presence of all the natives, we all knelt down before the cross, holding up our hands to heaven and praising God." [Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER. From an old pen drawing at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.]