Francis I, as always, had a great many problems. But the most pressing one was his need for gold--much more than his privateers and pirates could safely plunder from Spanish galleons. He had his mind on America itself as a solution. Jacques Cartier, a stout Breton mariner of St. Malo who knew the fishermen’s route to Codfish Land, was sent out by the French king in 1534, and again in 1535, to explore inland in America. He was to find gold, or the elusive passage to the treasures of Cathay at least. Maybe in the northwest, beyond Spanish claims, the new-found land was joined to Tartary as some of the geographers said. By striking inland Cartier might reach it. On his first voyage of discovery Cartier explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and claimed the country, calling it New France. He found the first Indians he met anxious to trade. They followed the French ships, in their birch-bark canoes and along the shores, dancing and singing to prove their friendliness, and holding up pelts on sticks. But the pelts turned out to be “such skinnes as they cloth themselves withall, which are of small value,” Cartier remarked. However, he gave the aborigines ironware and other things, while they danced about him, rubbed his chest and arms, and cast sea water over their heads in ceremonies of joy. “They gave us whatsoever they had, not keeping anything, so that they were constrained to go backe againe naked, and made us signes that the next day they would come againe, and bring more skinnes with them.” Along the shores of the gulf wherever he went Cartier made friends with the natives, giving to the women and children, little tin bells and beads--to the men: hatchets, knives, frying pans. But he found no gold; he located no passage to Cathay. When he embarked for his return to France he took two wild men of “Canada” with him, inveigling them into making the voyage by clothing them in shirts, colored coats and red caps, and putting a copper chain about each of their necks. These two, in France, assured the French king that far up the deep river of Canada (the St. Lawrence) and beyond, there were walled cities where people lived in houses--Hochelaga, and even more distant Saguenay. Frontier towns of Tartary! They could be. When Captain Cartier left with three ships in 1535 on his second voyage of discovery he was instructed to “go west as far as possible.” With the two Indians as guides, Cartier’s ships anchored finally in the quiet waters below present-day Quebec. Close by was the village of Donnacona, Indian “Lord of Canada,” who welcomed the white men even more than the safe return of his two subjects. He wanted to trade. But the French captain wasn’t much interested in Donnacona’s personal wardrobe or any other pelts.