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others rushed to the boats, while great numbers plunged into the river and swam to the other side. Donnacona and the others who had been taken with him were placed on board the ships and shut up there securely.

DISTRESS OF THE PEOPLE.

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The people were thrown into a condition of the deepest distress by the captivity of their prince. They came down that night in great numbers to the river's brink, on the further side, and there called out for a long time in piteous tones to Donnacona, beating their breasts and tearing their hair all the while, and making other barbarous demonstrations of suffering. This continued until the next day at noon, during all which time Cartier would not allow Donnacona to be brought up to speak to them. The people thought that the prisoner had been put to death, and they continually made signs to inquire whether it was so.

At last Cartier concluded to allow Donnacona to appear and speak to his subjects, in hopes that he might pacify them. He first, however, gave him special instructions to "be merrie," and to put a good face upon the matter in representing the case to the people. He charged him, moreover, to tell them that he was only going to make a visit to the

king of France, and that he should be gone only for a short time; that in a year or thereabouts he was sure to return, and that he should bring home with him, for himself and for his people, a great abundance of the richest presents, which the king of France would give him.

Donnacona did as he was bid. It was indeed greatly for his interest now to endeavor in every way to please his captors, as all his hopes, not only of being kindly treated while he was in their power, but of ever being released, depended upon their good will.

Donnacona held much other conversation with the men, but what he said to them was not interpreted, and Cartier did not understand it.

PROVISIONS FOR DONNACONA'S VOYAGE.

A few days after this a boat load of provisions, for Donnacona's use during the voyage, was brought to the ships. This boat was navigated by four women. It was not considered safe for men to come, for fear of their being detained as prisoners too. The women seemed greatly troubled at the captivity of their chief, and Donnacona begged Cartier to say to them himself that he would positively bring him back the next year. This assurance seemed to comfort them somewhat,

and they took from their persons their most valuable ornaments and presented them to Cartier as inducements to lead him to keep his promise. They told him, moreover, that in case he did truly bring Donnacona back, their people would give him far more valuable presents than those.

When the time for the sailing of the ship arrived, the people of the tribe assembled in great numbers on the bank of the river to witness the departure, and to bid their prince farewell. They made Cartier renew again and again his promise to bring him back to them the following year.

Unhappily this promise could not be fulfilled. Donnacona died in France, and although Cartier himself came back the following year, he could only bring to the poor Indians the tidings that their chief was no more.

RESULTS OF CARTIER'S DISCOVERIES.

It was indirectly in consequence of the discoveries and explorations which Cartier made in these expeditions, and of his taking possession of the territories which he visited in the name of the king of France, that the whole country bordering on the St. Lawrence was settled afterward by French colonies, and is inhabited by a French population to the present day.

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THE Hudson River-the second, perhaps, of American rivers in respect to political and commercial importance--was discovered, or at least was first entered and explored, by Henry Hudson, one of the most celebrated of the many navigators who in early times made voyages to America, in hopes of finding a way in that direction to India. It was from him, as is well known, that the river received its name.

He was not looking for a river when he entered this stream, but for an open passage leading to the South Seas. When he found, in passing into the channel which opened before him to the northward from the bay, that it was only the mouth of a river that he had discovered, he was disappointed and chagrined. He regarded his coming into it as rather a misfortune and a mistake. After exploring it for a certain distance from its mouth, he returned to what he considered the great and real

purpose of his expedition, namely, the discovery of some open passage into the South Seas. It is curious that posterity has exactly reversed the view which he took of these two elements of his work. His ideas and his efforts in respect to discovering a passage through the land to India are what are now looked upon as the illusions and mistakes of his career, while that which he considered at the time as in some sense an almost useless diversion from his real work, has been the means of gaining for him a very high and enduring fame.

FIRST AND SECOND VOYAGES OF HUDSON.

Hudson made four voyages to the American shores, the two first of which were accomplished in the years 1607 and 1608, and were directed far to the northward. He kept a minute journal of these two voyages, recording carefully in it all that happened each day. The details of his narrative consist chiefly of accounts of fields and mountains of ice seen upon the sea, of the dangers which the ships incurred in sailing among them, of the sterile and iron-bound character of the shore whenever land was in view, of the immense numbers of seals and other such animals that were seen upon the floes, of whales and porpoises in the water, migrat

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