The Indians whom he met told him by signs that Hochelaga lay still farther up-stream, at a distance of three days' journey.

Cartier decided to leave the Emerillon and to continue on his way in the two boats which he had brought with him.

Claude de Pont Briand and some of the gentlemen, together with twenty mariners, accompanied the leader, while the others remained in charge of the pinnace.
Three days of easy and prosperous navigation was sufficient for the journey, and on October 2, Cartier's boats, having rowed along the shores of Montreal island, landed in full sight of Mount Royal, at some point about three or four miles from the heart of the present city.

The precise location of the landing has been lost to history.

It has been thought by some that the boats advanced until the foaming waters of the Lachine rapids forbade all further progress.