When Jacques Cartier again took his departure from St. Malo, in May 1535, he commanded three ships and 110 sailors. A number of nobles and gentlemen, moreover, belonging to some of the proudest families in France, went with him, eager for adventure. They thought, as marine adventurers often thought in those days, that this time surely they would find the gateway to the passage of Cathay and win wealth untold. But they were not so lucky as at first; the winds were so bad that seven weeks elapsed before Cartier reached the Straits of Belle Isle. From this point the squadron steered for the Gulf St. Lawrence, so named by Cartier in honour of the saint upon whose day it was discovered. Keeping on, as his Indian interpreters bade him do, he sailed up that stream which the Indians called "The Great River of Canada." {6} Can you wonder at Cartier and his attendant nobles feeling a thrill of excitement as the landscape no white man had ever seen before slowly unfolded itself to view? Opposite the great mouth of the mysterious Saguenay red-men in birch bark canoes came to greet them. Their two interpreters could exchange language with these, although their many months' residence in France had made them very different in appearance from their brother savages of Canada. They wore now slashed crimson doublets and brilliant striped hose, while the massive feathers in their heads caused the Canadian Indians to regard them as chiefs of great renown. Cartier led his ships on to what the natives called "The Kingdom of Canada," which stretched along the St. Lawrence as far as the Island of Montreal, where the King of Hochelaga held his sway. To the fertile Isle of Orleans, which Cartier reached on the 9th of September, he gave the name of Isle of Bacchus, on account of the abundant grape vines growing upon it. From here the explorer could see on the north bank of the great river a towering promontory lit up by the morning sun. This was Cape Diamond, at whose base there crouched the Indian village of Stadacona. Cartier anchored here his little fleet, and the chief of the neighbouring tribe, Donacona, came to greet him, with twelve canoes full of warriors. After a speech of welcome, the women of the tribe, or squaws, danced and sang without ceasing, standing in water up to their knees.