It was his intent, good pilot as he was, that those who sailed after him should find it easy to sail on these coasts.
From St Catherine's Harbour the ships sailed on May 21 with a fine off-shore wind that made it easy to run on a course almost due north.
As they advanced on this course the mainland sank again from sight, but presently they came to an island.

It lay far out in the sea, and was surrounded by a great upheaval of jagged and broken ice.

On it and around it they saw so dense a mass of birds that no one, declares Cartier, could have believed it who had not seen it for himself.

The birds were as large as jays, they were coloured black and white, and they could scarcely fly because of their small wings and their exceeding fatness.

The modern enquirer will recognize, perhaps, the great auk which once abounded on the coast, but which is now extinct.
The sailors killed large numbers of the birds, and filled two boats with them.