Pile on pile The granite masses rise to left and right; Bald, stately bluffs that never wear a smile.... And we must pass a thousand bluffs like these, Within whose breasts are locked a myriad mysteries. SANGSTER. The Saguenay is first heard of in the narrative of Cartier’s second voyage. On his way to Canada, the realm of the Iroquois sachem, Donnacona, he came, early in September 1535, to the mouth of a great river flowing into the St. Lawrence from the west. His native guides told him that this river, whose gloomy majesty was to be the theme of many later travellers, was the main road to the "kingdom of Saguenay." One may well believe that the adventurous captain of St. Malo would gladly have turned his ships between the towering portals of the Saguenay, for the pure joy of discovery, had not a greater project lured him toward the south-west. While his vessels were anchored off the mouth of the river, his attention was drawn to a curious fish "which no man had ever before seen or heard of." The Indians called them adhothuys, and told him that they were found only in such places as this, where the waters of sea and river mingled. Cartier says they were as large as porpoises, had the head and body of a greyhound, and were as white as snow and without a spot. These white porpoises, as they are now called, are still found at the mouth of the Saguenay. At one time their capture formed an important part of the fisheries of Tadoussac. There is a romantic tradition that de Roberval sailed up the Saguenay with a company of adventurers, about the year 1549, in search of a kingdom of fabulous riches, and that he and his men perished on the way. It is probable, however, that the expedition had as little foundation as the kingdom it was designed to exploit. Half a century later the first settlement was made at Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay. For many years this had been a meeting-place for the Basque traders and the Indians from the interior, but it was not until the year 1600 that anything in the nature of a permanent post had been established. In that year Pierre de Chauvin, Pont-Gravé, and de Monts, sailed for the St. Lawrence, built a house at Tadoussac, and left sixteen men there for the winter to carry on the fur-trade. The venture was not a success, and the place was abandoned the following year, but Tadoussac remained for many years an important point in the fur-trade. It is said that in 1648 the traffic amounted to 250,000 livres. A church built here by the missionaries a hundred years later is still standing. Tadoussac is chiefly known to-day as one of the favourite watering-places on the Lower St. Lawrence.