Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A book of American explorers

In the midst of those fields is the city of Hochelaga, placed near, and as it were joined, to a great mountain, that is tilled round about very fertile, on the top of which you may see very far. We named it Mount Royal.¹ The city of Hochelaga is round, compassed about with timber, with three course of rampires,² one within another, framed like a sharp spire, but laid across above. The middlemost of them is made and built as a direct line, but perpendicular. The rampires are framed and fashioned with pieces of timber, laid along on the ground, very well and cunningly joined together after their fashion. This enclosure is in height about two rods. It hath but one gate or entry thereat, which is shut with piles, stakes, and bars. Over it, and also in many places of the wall, there be places to run along, and ladders to get up, all full of stones for the defence of it.

There are in the town about fifty houses about fifty paces long, and twelve or fifteen broad, built all of wood, covered over with the bark of the wood as broad as any boards, very finely and cunningly joined together. Within the said houses there are many rooms, lodgings, and chambers. In the midst of every one there is a great court, in the middle whereof they make their fire. They live in common together: then do the husbands, wives, and children, each one retire themselves