The French
seamen called it _pingouin_ ("penguin") from its fatness, and this
name was much later transferred to the real penguins of the southern
seas which are quite unrelated to the auks.]
Passing through the Straits of Belle Isle, Cartier's ships entered
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They had previously visited the adjoining
coast of Labrador, and there had encountered their first "natives",
members of some Algonkin tribe from Canada, who had come north for
seal fishing (Cartier is clever enough to notice and describe their
birch-bark canoes). After examining the west coast of Newfoundland,
Cartier's ships sailed on past the Magdalen Islands (stopping every
now and then off some islet to collect supplies of sea birds, for the
rocky ground was covered with them as thickly as a meadow with
grass).[3] He reached the north coast of Prince Edward Island, and
this lovely country received from him an enthusiastic description. The
pine trees, the junipers, yews, elms, poplars, ash, and willows, the
beeches and the maples, made the forest not only full of delicious and
stimulating odours, but lovely in its varied tints of green. In the
natural meadows and forest clearings there were red and white
currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, a vetch which
produced edible peas, and a grass with a grain like rye.
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