One day as Cartier was walking near the river, feeling very sad and discouraged, he met an Indian who, but a short time before, had been ill. Upon Cartier’s asking him how he had been cured he explained that it was by taking a medicine made from an evergreen tree called Ameda.* With hope and joy Cartier hurried back to tell his men. They tried the remedy at once in fact, they used up nearly a whole tree and before long all were well again.
At last spring came, the warm winds began to blow, the ice melted away, and the French prepared for their homeward voyage. It was at this time that Cartier did a very wicked thing. He captured Donnacona and four other Indian chiefs, and took them against their will to France. He did this simply because he wanted to show them to the people of his country, and to have them tell the king of the wonders of the New World. They never saw their native land again, but died in a strange country and among strange people. This was the way Cartier repaid the Indians for all the kindness they had shown him during his stay with them.
From ‘The Story of Canada’ (1927) by Edith Louise Marsh (1870-1960).
The man he met down on the ice was Domagaia, one of the Iroquois tribesmen from Stadacona, whom Cartier had recently seen in a sorry state thanks to scurvy. The transformation was breathtaking, and cautiously (for fear of admitting how many men he had lost) Cartier asked Domagaia’s secret. It was, he learnt, a certain tree. “Domagaia straight sent two women to fetch some of it,” we learn from the translation in Hakluyt’s Principal Voyages, “which brought ten or twelve branches of it, and therewithal shew’d the way how to use it, and that is thus, to take the barke and leaves of the sayd tree, and boile them together, then to drinke of the sayd decoction every other day, and to put the dregs of it upon his legs that is sicke: moreover, they told us, that the vertue of that tree was, to heale any other disease: the tree is in their language called Ameda or Hanneda, this is thought to be the Sassafras tree.” Modern science is more inclined to think it was the Northern White-Cedar, thuja occidentalis, which yields high levels of vitamin C.
Précis
Walking out from his camp, Cartier fell in with a Canadian whom he knew, who taught him how to cure scurvy with a medicine made from a tree. Soon Cartier’s men were whole. As they left for France, they kidnapped five of the kindly Canadians and took them to Paris: a shocking betrayal, especially as their captives never came home. (60 / 60 words)
Walking out from his camp, Cartier fell in with a Canadian whom he knew, who taught him how to cure scurvy with a medicine made from a tree. Soon Cartier’s men were whole. As they left for France, they kidnapped five of the kindly Canadians and took them to Paris: a shocking betrayal, especially as their captives never came home.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, despite, if, or, since, unless, whereas.
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Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Feel. Lie. Which.
2 Bring. Four. Ready.
3 Cold. No. Throw.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
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