The things we do!

It is no such instrument as the "Compact" which
the men of the _Mayflower_ signed as they approached the continent nearly
a century later, but it is none the less fateful.
The autumn leaves had not yet fallen from the trees of Brittany when the
two ships that started out in April appeared again in the harbor of St.
Malo, carrying two dusky passengers from the New World as proofs of
Carrier's ventures. He had made reconnoissance of the gulf behind
Newfoundland and returned for fresh means of farther quest toward Cathay.
The leaves were but come again on the trees of Brittany when, with a
larger crew in three small vessels (one of only forty tons), he again went
out with the ebb-tide from St. Malo; his men, some of whom had been
gathered from the jails, having all made their confession and attended
mass, and received the benediction of the bishop. In August he entered the
great river St. Lawrence, whose volume of water was so great as to
brighten Carrier's hopes of having found the northern way to India.


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