Le dix-septiesme du mesme mois d'Aoust, le Pere de Quen arriua à Kebec dans vne chalouppe, qu'enuoyoit le Capitaine Bontemps pour donner aduis de sa venuë à Tadoussac. Or comme on a veu ceste année les glaces espouuantables sur la mer; vne entre autres de trente à quarante lieuës, d'autres disent de soixante lieuës d'estenduë; vn Pilote m'a asseuré qu'ils la costoierent trois iours & trois nuits ayans vn assez bon vent en poupe, & qu'en quelques endroits elle auoit des campagnes toutes rases, & en d'autres elle se releuoit en collines, & en hautes montagnes. De plus on a veu quelques vaisseaux Turcs, au sortir [108] de la Manche, & quelques nauires degradez voguer en mer çà & là sans vergues & sans voiles, qu'on croit auoir esté pris de ces infideles, lesquels abandonnent souuent les vaisseaux qu'ils rauissent, apres auoir enleué tout ce qui est dedans. Comme disie tous ces bruits couroient, nous auions tous perdu l'esperance de veoir le Capitaine Bontemps, la saison de voguer icy se passant; c'est pourquoy sa venuë inesperée a causé d'autant plus de ioye, qu'on eust esté marry qu'vn si braue Capitaine & vn si bel equipage se fust perdu. Le Pere de Quen nous raconta l'occasion de leur retardement, & nous donna sujet de loüer Dieu, qui les a tiré des ombres de la mort, les sauuant d'vn naufrage qui sembloit ineuitable. On the seventeenth of the same month of August, Father de Quen[15] arrived at Kebec in a shallop which Captain Bontemps sent to give the news of his arrival at Tadoussac. Now as frightful icebergs have been seen this year upon the sea,--among others, one from thirty to forty, others say sixty leagues in extent, so large that a Pilot has assured me that he coasted along it for three days and three nights having a fair wind astern, and that in some places it had level plains, in others it rose into hills and high mountains: and since some Turkish vessels had been seen sailing out [108] of the English Channel, and some damaged ships floating here and there on the sea without masts and without sails,--which are believed to have been captured by those infidels, who often abandon ships which they plunder, after having robbed them of all they contain:[16] now as all these reports were being circulated, we had all lost hope of seeing Captain Bontemps, the season for sailing to this country having passed. It was this that made his unexpected arrival give us all the more joy, for we would have been sorry if so brave a Captain and so fine a crew had been lost. Father de Quen related to us the cause of their delay, and gave us reason to thank God, who drew them back from the shades of death, saving them from a shipwreck which seemed inevitable.