I

10' HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

Cape Breton, the Gulf Shore to Bay Verte, Miramichi, Bay Chaleur, Gaspe, thence through the margin of the forest to Canada, settlements had been founded.

forest fldating on the bosom of the waters—was entirely neglected, or as it were, left to the savages and wild animals of the forest to be cared for. This beautiful gem of the Gulf, when first beheld by Champlain while on his way to found the city of Quebec, in 1608, and that great officer and explorer, bestowed upgn it the name of Isle of St. Jean. However for the present and many years after, it was allowed to remain in its primeval state, unheeded, overlooked and disregarded, although it contained an area of 2,200 square miles of fertile ground covered with a magnificent forest, yet no attempt at founding a colony was made. True, the wild shouts of the hunter and hideous whoop of the warrior were sometimes heard, but cul- tivated fields, comfortable dwellings and the blessings of civil- ization were absent.

In a literary work recently published by authority at Ottawa, it appears by Mr. Joseph Pope’s translation of the journal kept of Cartier’s celebrated voyage to New F rance—in which every

first voyage to the New World.

From the record of this interesting event, which for so many years, as it were, lay dormant in the Archives of Quebec, the following abstract is taken :—~

“ On Monday, June 20th, departed from the Magdalen Islands and sailing westward, on the morning next wee discovered lande which seemed to be two Ilands, that were beyond us West‘south-west, about nine or tenne leagues. All the next day we sailed westward about fourtie leagues, and by the way we perceived that the lande we had seen like Ilands was firm lande, lying South-south-east and to a very good cape of land called Cape Orleans. All the said lande is low and plaine, and the fairest that may possibly be seen full of goodly meadowes and trees. True it is that we could find no harbourage there, because it is all full of shelves and sands. Wee with our boats went on shore in many places, and among the rest wee entered into a goodly river, but very shallow, which wee named the river of boats, because that there wee saw boats full of wild men that were crossing the river.”