Of the first expedition—that connected with the Saguenay or vicinity—we have no account in the narrative which covers the voyage of Roberval. Father Le Clercq, however, says: “The Sire Roberval writes that he undertook some considerable voyages to the Saguenay and several other rivers. It was he who sent Allefonsce, a very expert pilot of Saintonge, to Labrador to find a passage to the Indies, as was hoped. But not being able to carry out his designs, on account of the heights of ice that stopped his passage, he was obliged to return to M. de Roberval with only this advantage, of having discovered the passage which is between the Isle of Newfoundland and the Great Land of the north by the fifty-second degree.”[181] Le Clercq gives no authority for his statement, and one writer[182] discredits it, for the reason that Allefonsce is made to “discover” the passage between Newfoundland and Labrador. It is probable, however, that Le Clercq, or his authority, meant no more by the term “discover” than to explore, as the Strait of Belle Isle was at that period as well known as Cape Breton. Allefonsce’s narrative and maps do not show that he explored the Saguenay. It can hardly be questioned that a voyage was made by Allefonsce along the Atlantic coast. The precise date, however, cannot be fixed. His _Cosmographie_ proves that he had a personal knowledge of the country. The voyage might have been made on some one of the ships which returned to France while Roberval was in the country. Failing to discover any passage to the Indies, Allefonsce may have run down the Atlantic coast, hoping to find some hitherto neglected opening. At all events, when he visited the coast he found a great bay in latitude forty-two, apparently Massachusetts Bay. The original notice is found in his _Cosmographie_, now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. It runs: “These lands reach to Tartary; and I think that it is the end of Asia,[183] according to the roundness of the world. And for this purpose it would be well to have a small vessel of seventy tons, in order to discover the coast of Florida; for I have been at a bay as far as forty-two degrees, between Norumbega and Florida, but I have not seen the end, and do not know whether it extends any farther.”[184] The belief in a western passage was after all very hard to give up, and Champlain, in the next century, was consumed by the idea. * * * * *