In The
Midst Of These Cultivated Fields The City Of Hochelega Is Situated, Near
And Almost Joined To A Great Mountain, Which Is Very Fertile And
Cultivated All Round, To Which We Gave The Name Of Mount Royal[49].
[Footnote 49:
Montreal, whence the island and city of the same
name. - E.]
The city of Hochelega is circular, and encompassed all round with three
rows of ramparts made of timber, one within the other, "framed like a
sharp spire but laid across above, the middlemost is made and built as a
direct line but perpendicular, the ramparts are framed and fashioned
with pieces of timber laid along the ground, well and cunningly joined
together[50]." This inclosure is about two roods high, and has but one
gate of entrance, which is shut when necessary with piles, stakes, and
bars. Over the gate, and in many other parts of the wall, there are
scaffolds having ladders up to them, and on these scaffolds there are
large heaps of stones, ready for defending the place against an enemy.
The town consisted of about fifty large houses, each of them about fifty
paces long and twelve broad, all built of wood and covered with broad
strips of bark, like boards, nicely joined. These houses are divided
within into many rooms, and in the middle of each there is a court or
hall, in which they make their fire. Thus they live in communities, each
separate family having a chamber to which the husband, wife, and
children retire to sleep. On the tops of their houses they have garrets
or granaries, in which they store up the maize of which their bread is
made, which they call caracouny, and which is made in this manner.
They have blocks of wood hollowed out, like those on which we beat hemp,
and in these they beat their corn to powder with wooden beetles. The
meal is kneaded into cakes, which they lay on a broad hot stone,
covering it up with other heated stones, which thus serve instead of
ovens. Besides these cakes, they make several kinds of pottage from
their maize, and also of beans and pease, both of which they have in
abundance. They have also a variety of fruits, such as musk-melons and
very large cucumbers. They have likewise large vessels in all their
houses, as big as butts or large hogsheads, in which they store up their
fish for winter provision, having dried them in the sun during summer
for that purpose, and of these they lay up large stores for their
provision during winter. All their victuals, however, are without the
smallest taste of salt. They sleep on beds made of the bark of trees
spread on the ground, and covered over with the skins of wild beasts;
with which likewise their garments are made.
[Footnote 50: This description of the manner in which the ramparts of
Hochelega were constructed, taken literally from Hakluyt, is by no means
obvious or intelligible.
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