Proceeding up the river near Hochelaga he found "a great number of dwellings along the shore" inhabited by fisherfolk, as was the custom of the Huron-Iroquois in the summer season. The village called Hochelay was situated about forty-five miles above Stadacona, at the Richelieu rapid, between which and Hochelaga, a distance of about 135 miles, he mentions no village. This absence of settlements I attribute to the fact that the intermediate Three Rivers region was an ancient special appurtenance of the Algonquins, with whom the Hochelagans were to all appearance then on terms of friendly sufferance and trade, if not alliance. In later days the same region was uninhabited, on account of Iroquois incursions by the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain. In the islands at the head of Lake St. Peter, Cartier met five hunters who directed him to Hochelaga. "More than a thousand" persons, he says, received them with joy at Hochelaga. This expression of number however is not very definite. It is frequently used by Dante to signify a multitude in the _Divina Comédia_. The town of Hochelaga consisted of "about fifty houses, in length about fifty paces each at most, and twelve or fifteen paces wide," made of bark on sapling frames in the manner of the Iroquois long houses. The round "fifties" are obviously approximate. The plan of the town given in Ramusio shows some forty-five fires, each serving some five families, but the interior division differs so greatly from that of early Huron and Iroquois houses, and from his phrase "fifty by twelve or fifteen," that it appears to be the result of inaccurate drawing. There is therefore considerable room for difference as to the population of the town, ranging from say 1,200 to 2,000 souls, the verbal description which is much the more authoritative, inclining in favour of the latter. Any estimate of the total population of the Hochelagan race on the river, must be a guess. If, however, those on the island of Montreal be set at 2,000, and the "more than 500" of Stadacona be considered as a fair average for the principal town and 300 (which also was the average estimated by Père Lalemant for the Neutral nation) as an average for the eight or so villages of the Quebec district, (the absentees, such as the 200 at Gaspé from Stadacona being perhaps offset by contingents from the places close to Stadacona) we have some 4,900 accounted for. Those on all the hills to the south and east of Mount Royal would add anywhere from say 3,000 to an indefinitely greater number more. Perhaps 5,000, however, should not be exceeded as the limit for these hills and Lake Champlain. We arrive therefore at a guess of from 7,900 to 9,900 as the total. As the lower figures seem conservative, compared with the early average of Huron and Iroquois villages, the guess may perhaps be raised a little to say from 10,000 to 11,000. "This people confines itself to tillage and fishing, for they do not leave their country and are not