The war-policy of Champlain was undoubtedly very plainly set forth in his correspondence and interviews with the viceroys and several companies under whose authority he acted. But these discussions, whether oral or written, do not appear in general to have been preserved. Fortunately a single document of this character is still extant, in which his views are clearly unfolded. In Champlain's remarkable letter to Cardinal de Richelieu, which we have introduced a few pages back, his policy is fully stated. It is undoubtedly the same that he had acted upon from the beginning, and explains the frankness and readiness with which, first and last, as a faithful ally, he had professed himself willing to aid the friendly tribes in their wars against the Iroquois. The object which he wished to accomplish by this tribal war was, as fully stated in the letter to which we have referred, first, to conquer the Iroquois or Five Nations; to introduce peaceful relations between them and the other surrounding tribes; and, secondly, to establish a grand alliance of all the savage tribes, far and near, with the French. This could only be done in the order here stated. No peace could be secured from the Iroquois, except by their conquest, the utter breaking down of their power. They were not susceptible to the influence of reason. They were implacable, and had been brutalized by long-inherited habits of cruelty. In the total annihilation of their power was the only hope of peace. This being accomplished, the surviving remnant would, according to the usual custom among the Indians, readily amalgamate with the victorious tribes, and then a general alliance with the French could be easily secured. This was what Champlain wished to accomplish. The pacification of all the tribes occupying both sides of the St. Lawrence and the chain of northern lakes would place the whole domain of the American continent, or as much of it as it would be desirable to hold, under the easy and absolute control of the French nation.

Such a pacification as this would secure two objects; objects eminently important, appealing strongly to all who desired the aggrandizement of France and the progress and supremacy of the Catholic faith. It would secure for ever to the French the fur-trade of the Indians, a commerce then important and capable of vast expansion. The chief strength and resources of the savages allied with the French, the Montagnais, Algonquins, and Hurons, were at that period expended in their wars. On the cessation of hostilities, their whole force would naturally and inevitably be given to the chase. A grand field lay open to them for this exciting occupation. The fur-bearing country embraced not only the region of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, but the vast and unlimited expanse of territory stretching out indefinitely in every direction. The whole northern half of the continent of North America, filled with the most valuable fur-producing mammalia, would be open to the enterprise of the French, and could not fail to pour into their treasury an incredible amount of wealth. This Champlain was far-sighted enough to see, and his patriotic zeal lead him to desire that France should avail herself of this opportunity. [118]

But the conquest of the Iroquois would not only open to France the prospect of exhaustless wealth, but it would render accessible a broad, extensive, and inviting field of missionary labor. It would remove all external and physical obstacles to the speedy transmission and offer of the Christian faith to the numberless tribes that would thus be brought within their reach.

The desire to bring about these two great ulterior purposes, the augmentation of the commerce of France in the full development of the fur-trade, and the gathering into the Catholic church the savage tribes of the wilderness, explains the readiness with which, from the beginning, Champlain encouraged his Indian allies and took part with them in their wars against the Five Nations. In the very last year of his life, he demanded of Richelieu the requisite military force to carry on this war, reminding him that the cost would be trifling to his Majesty, while the enterprise would be the most noble that could be imagined.

In regard to the domestic and social life of Champlain, scarcely any documents remain that can throw light upon the subject. Of his parents we have little information beyond that of their respectable calling and standing. He was probably an only child, as no others are on any occasion mentioned or referred to. He married, as we have seen, the daughter of the Secretary of the King's Chamber, and his wife, Helene Boulle, accompanied him to Canada in 1620, where she remained four years. They do not appear to have had children, as the names of none are found in the records at Quebec, and, at his death, the only claimant as an heir, was a cousin, Marie Cameret, who, in 1639, resided at Rochelle, and whose husband was Jacques Hersant, controller of duties and imposts. After Champlain's decease, his wife, Helene Boulle, became a novice in an Ursuline convent in the faubourg of St. Jacques in Paris. Subsequently, in 1648, she founded a religious house of the same order in the city of Meaux, contributing for the purpose the sum of twenty thousand livres and some part of the furnishing. She entered the house that she had founded, as a nun, under the name of Sister Helene de St. Augustin, where, as the foundress, certain privileges were granted to her, such as a superior quality of food for herself, exemption from attendance upon some of the longer services, the reception into the convent, on her recommendation, of a young maiden to be a nun of the choir, with such pecuniary assistance as she might need, and the letters of her brother, the Father Eustache Boulle, were to be exempted from the usual inspection. She died at Meaux, on the 20th day of December, 1654, in the convent which she had founded. [119]

As an explorer, Champlain was unsurpassed by any who visited the northern coasts of America anterior to its permanent settlement He was by nature endowed with a love of useful adventure, and for the discovery of new countries he had an insatiable thirst. It began with him as a child, and was fresh and irrepressible in his latest years. Among the arts, he assigned to navigation the highest importance. His broad appreciation of it and his strong attachment to it, are finely stated in his own compact and comprehensive description.

"Of all the most useful and excellent arts, that of navigation has always seemed to me to occupy the first place. For the more hazardous it is, and the more numerous the perils and losses by which it is attended, so much the more is it esteemed and exalted above all others, being wholly unsuited to the timid and irresolute. By this art we obtain a knowledge of different countries, regions, and realms. By it we attract and bring to our own land all kinds of riches; by it the idolatry of paganism is overthrown and Christianity proclaimed throughout all the regions of the earth. This is the art which won my love in my early years, and induced me to expose myself almost all my life to the impetuous waves of the ocean, and led me to explore the coasts of a part of America, especially those of New France, where I have always desired to see the Lily flourish, together with the only religion, catholic, apostolic, and Roman."

In addition to his natural love for discovery, Champlain had a combination of other qualities which rendered his explorations pre-eminently valuable. His interest did not vanish with seeing what was new. It was by no means a mere fancy for simple sight-seeing. Restlessness and volatility did not belong to his temperament. His investigations were never made as an end, but always as a means. His undertakings in this direction were for the most part shaped and colored by his Christian principle and his patriotic love of France. Sometimes one and sometimes the other was more prominent.

His voyage to the West Indies was undertaken under a twofold impulse. It gratified his love of exploration and brought back rare and valuable information to France. Spain at that time did not open her island-ports to the commerce of the world. She was drawing from them vast revenues in pearls and the precious metals. It was her policy to keep this whole domain, this rich archipelago, hermetically sealed, and any foreign vessel approached at the risk of capture and confiscation. Champlain could not, therefore, explore this region under a commission from France. He accordingly sought and obtained permission to visit these Spanish possessions under the authority of Spain herself. He entered and personally examined all the important ports that surround and encircle the Caribbean Sea, from the pearl-bearing Margarita on the south, Deseada on the east, to Cuba on the west, together with the city of Mexico, and the Isthmus of Panama on the mainland. As the fruit of these journeyings, he brought back a report minute in description, rich in details, and luminous with illustrations. This little brochure, from the circumstances attendant upon its origin, is unsurpassed in historical importance by any similar or competing document of that period. It must always remain of the highest value as a trustworthy, original authority, without which it is probable that the history of those islands, for that period, could not be accurately and truthfully written.

Champlain was a pioneer in the exploration of the Atlantic coast of New England and the eastern provinces of Canada, From the Strait of Canseau, at the northeastern extremity of Nova Scotia, to the Vineyard Sound, on the southern limits of Massachusetts, he made a thorough survey of the coast in 1605 and 1606, personally examining its most important harbors, bays, and rivers, mounting its headlands, penetrating its forests, carefully observing and elaborately describing its soil, its products, and its native inhabitants. Besides lucid and definite descriptions of the coast, he executed topographical drawings of numerous points of interest along our shores, as Plymouth harbor, Nauset Bay, Stage Harbor at Chatham, Gloucester Bay, the Bay of Baco, with the long stretch of Old Orchard Beach and its interspersed islands, the mouth of the Kennebec, and as many more on the coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. To these he added descriptions, more or less definite, of the harbors of Barnstable, Wellfleet, Boston, of the headland of Cape Anne, Merrimac Bay, the Isles of Shoals, Cape Porpoise, Richmond's Island, Mount Desert, Isle Haute, Seguin, and the numberless other islands that adorn the exquisite sea-coast of Maine, as jewels that add a new lustre to the beauty of a peerless goddess.

Other navigators had coasted along our shores. Some of them had touched at single points, of which they made meagre and unsatisfactory surveys. Gosnold had, in 1602, discovered Savage Rock, but it was so indefinitely located and described that it cannot even at this day be identified. Resolving to make a settlement on one of the barren islands forming the group named in honor of Queen Elizabeth and still bearing her name; after some weeks spent in erecting a storehouse, and in collecting a cargo of "furrs, skyns, saxafras, and other commodities," the project of a settlement was abandoned and he returned to England, leaving, however, two permanent memorials of his voyage, in the names which he gave respectively to Martha's Vineyard and to the headland of Cape Cod.

Captain Martin Pring came to our shores in 1603, in search of a cargo of sassafras. There are indications that he entered the Penobscot. He afterward paid his respects to Savage Rock, the undefined bonanza of his predecessor. He soon found his desired cargo on the Vineyard Islands, and hastily returned to England.

Captain George Weymouth, in 1605, was on the coast of Maine concurrently, or nearly so, with Champlain, where he passed a month, explored a river, set up a cross, and took possession of the country in the name of the king. But where these transactions took place is still in dispute, so indefinitely does his journalist describe them.

Captain John Smith, eight years later than Champlain, surveyed the coast of New England while his men were collecting a cargo of furs and fish. He wrote a description of it from memory, part or all of it while a prisoner on board a French ship of war off Fayall, and executed a map, both valuable, but nevertheless exceedingly indefinite and general in their character.

These flying visits to our shores were not unimportant, and must not be undervalued. They were necessary steps in the progress of the grand historical events that followed. But they were meagre and hasty and superficial, when compared to the careful, deliberate, extensive, and thorough, not to say exhaustive, explorations made by Champlain.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Cartier had preceded Champlain by a period of more than sixty years. During this long, dreary half-century the stillness of the primeval forest had not been disturbed by the woodman's axe. When Champlain's eyes fell upon it, it was still the same wild, unfrequented, unredeemed region that it had been to its first discoverer. The rivers, bays, and islands described by Cartier were identified by Champlain, and the names they had already received were permanently fixed by his added authority. The whole gulf and river were re-examined and described anew in his journal. The exploration of the Richelieu and of Lake Champlain was pushed into the interior three hundred miles from his base at Quebec. It reached into a wilderness and along gentle waters never before seen by any civilized race. It was at once fascinating and hazardous, environed as it was by vigilant and ferocious savages, who guarded its gates with the sleepless watchfulness of the fabled Cerberus.

The courage, endurance, and heroism of Champlain were tested in the still greater-exploration of 1615. It extended from Montreal, the whole length of the Ottawa, to Lake Nipissing, the Georgian Bay, Simcoe, the system of small lakes on the south, across the Ontario, and finally ending in the interior of the State of New York, a journey through tangled forests and broken water-courses of more than a thousand miles, occupying nearly a year, executed in the face of physical suffering and hardship before which a nature less intrepid and determined, less loyal to his great purpose, less generous and unselfish, would have yielded at the outset. These journeys into the interior, along the courses of navigable rivers and lakes, and through the primitive forests, laid open to the knowledge of the French a domain vast and indefinite in extent, on which an empire broader and far richer in resources than the old Gallic France might have been successfully reared.

The personal explorations of Champlain in the West Indies, on the Atlantic coast, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the State of New York and of Vermont, and among the lakes in Canada and those that divide the Dominion from the United States, including the full, explicit, and detailed journals which he wrote concerning them, place Champlain undeniably not merely in the front rank, but at the head of the long list of explorers and navigators, who early visited this part of the continent of North America.

Champlain's literary labors are interesting and important. They were not professional, but incidental, and the natural outgrowth of the career to which he devoted his life He had the sagacity to see that the fields which he entered as an explorer were new and important, that the aspect of every thing which he then saw would, under the influence and progress of civilization, soon be changed, and that it was historically important that a portrait Sketched by an eyewitness should be handed down to other generations. It was likewise necessary for the immediate and successful planting of colonies, that those who engaged in the undertaking should have before them full information of all the conditions on which they were to build their hopes of final success.

Inspired by such motives as these, Champlain wrote out an accurate journal of the events that transpired about him, of what he personally saw, and of the observations of others, authenticated by the best tests which, under the circumstances, he was able to apply. His natural endowments for this work were of the highest order. As an observer he was sagacious, discriminating, and careful. His judgment was cool, comprehensive, and judicious. His style is in general clear, logical, and compact. His acquired ability was not, however, extraordinary. He was a scholar neither by education nor by profession. His life was too full of active duties, or too remote from the centres of knowledge for acquisitions in the departments of elegant and refined learning. The period in which he lived was little distinguished for literary culture. A more brilliant day was approaching, but it had not yet appeared. The French language was still crude and unpolished. It had not been disciplined and moulded into the excellence to which it soon after arose in the reign of Louis XIV. We cannot in reason look for a grace, refinement, and flexibility which the French language had not at that time generally attained. But it is easy to see under the rude, antique, and now obsolete forms which characterize Champlain's narratives, the elements of a style which, under, early discipline, nicer culture, and a richer vocabulary, might have made it a model for all times. There are, here and there, some involved, unfinished, and obscure passages, which seem, indeed, to be the offspring of haste, or perhaps of careless and inadequate proof-reading. But in general his style is without ornament, simple, dignified, concise, and clear. While he was not a diffusive writer, his works are by no means limited in extent, as they occupy in the late erudite Laverdiere's edition, six quarto volumes, containing fourteen hundred pages. In them are three large maps, delineating the whole northeastern part of the continent, executed with great care and labor by his own hand, together with numerous local drawings, picturing not only bays and harbors, Indian canoes, wigwams, and fortresses, but several battle scenes, conveying a clear idea, not possible by a mere verbal description, of the savage implements and mode of warfare. [120] His works include, likewise, a treatise on navigation, full of excellent suggestions to the practical seaman of that day, drawn from his own experience, stretching over a period of more than forty years.

The Voyages of Champlain, as an authority, must always stand in the front rank. In trustworthiness, in richness and fullness of detail, they have no competitor in the field of which they treat. His observations upon the character, manners, customs, habits, and utensils of the aborigines, were made before they were modified or influenced in their mode of life by European civilization. The intercourse of the strolling fur-trader and fishermen with them was so infrequent and brief at that early period, that it made upon them little or no impression. Champlain consequently pictures the Indian in his original, primeval simplicity. This will always give to his narratives, in the eye of the historian, the ethnologist, and the antiquary, a peculiar and pre-eminent importance. The result of personal observation, eminently truthful and accurate, their testimony must in all future time be incomparably the best that can be obtained relating to the aborigines on this part of the American continent.

In completing this memoir, the reader can hardly fail to be impressed, not to say disappointed, by the fact that results apparently insignificant should thus far have followed a life of able, honest, unselfish, heroic labor. The colony was still small in numbers, the acres subdued and brought into cultivation were few, and the aggregate yearly products were meagre. But it is to be observed that the productiveness of capital and labor and talent, two hundred and seventy years ago, cannot well be compared with the standards of to-day. Moreover, the results of Champlain's career are insignificant rather in appearance than in reality. The work which he did was in laying foundations, while the superstructure was to be reared in other years and by other hands. The palace or temple, by its lofty and majestic proportions, attracts the eye and gratifies the taste; but its unseen foundations, with their nicely adjusted arches, without which the superstructure would crumble to atoms, are not less the result of the profound knowledge and practical wisdom of the architect. The explorations made by Champlain early and late, the organization and planting of his colonies, the resistance of avaricious corporations, the holding of numerous savage tribes in friendly alliance, the daily administration of the affairs of the colony, of the savages, and of the corporation in France, to the eminent satisfaction of all generous and noble-minded patrons, and this for a period of more than thirty years, are proofs of an extraordinary combination of mental and moral qualities. Without impulsiveness, his warm and tender sympathies imparted to him an unusual power and influence over other men. He was wise, modest, and judicious in council, prompt, vigorous, and practical in administration, simple and frugal in his mode of life, persistent and unyielding in the execution of his plans, brave and valiant in danger, unselfish, honest, and conscientious in the discharge of duty. These qualities, rare in combination, were always conspicuous in Champlain, and justly entitle him to the respect and admiration of mankind.

ENDNOTES:

117. Vide Creuxius, Historia Canadensis, pp 183, 184.

118. The justness of Champlain's conception of the value of the fur-trade has been verified by its subsequent history. The Hudson's Bay Company was organized for the purpose of carrying on this trade, under a charter granted by Charles II., in 1670. A part of the trade has at times been conducted by other associations But this company is still in active and rigorous operation. Its capital is $10,000,000. At its reorganization in 1863, it was estimated that it would yield a net annual income, to be divided among the corporators, of $400,000. It employs twelve hundred servants beside its chief factors. It is easy to see what a vast amount of wealth in the shape of furs and peltry has been pouring into the European markets, for more than two hundred years, from this fur bearing region, and the sources of this wealth are probably little, if in any degree, diminished.

119. Vide Documents inedits sur Samuel de Champlain, par Etienne Charavay, archiviste-paleographe, Paris, 1875.

120. The later sketches made by Champlain are greatly superior to those which he executed to illustrate his voyage in the West Indies. They are not only accurate, but some of them are skilfully done, and not only do no discredit to an amateur, but discover marks of artistic taste and skill.



ANNOTATIONES POSTSCRIPTAE

EUSTACHE BOULLE. A brother-in-law of Champlain, who made his first visit to Canada in 1618. He was an active assistant of Champlain, and in 1625 was named his lieutenant. He continued there until the taking of Quebec by the English in 1629. He subsequently took holy orders.—Vide Doc. inedits sur Samuel de Champlain, par Etienne Charavay. Paris, 1875, p. 8.

PONT GRAVE. The whole career of this distinguished merchant was closely associated with Canadian trade. He was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the interest of Chauvin, in 1599. He commanded the expedition sent out by De Chaste in 1603, when Champlain made his first exploration of the River St. Lawrence. He was intrusted with the chief management of the trade carried on with the Indians by the various companies and viceroys under Champlain's lieutenancy until the removal of the colony by the English, when his active life was closed by the infirmities of age. He was always a warm and trusted friend of Champlain, who sought his counsel on all occasions of importance.

THE BIRTH OF CHAMPLAIN. All efforts to fix the exact date of his birth have been unsuccessful. M. De Richemond, author of a Biographie de la Charente Inferieure, instituted most careful searches, particularly with the hope of finding a record of his baptism. The records of the parish of Brouage extend back only to August 11, 1615. The duplicates, deposited at the office of the civil tribunal of Marennes anterior to this date, were destroyed by fire.—MS. letter of M. De Richemond, Archivist of the Dep. of Charente Inferieure, La Rochelle, July 17, 1875.

MARC LESCARBOT. We have cited the authority of this writer in this work on many occasions. He was born at Vervins, perhaps about 1585. He became an advocate, and a resident of Paris, and, according to Larousse, died in 1630. He came to America in 1606, and passed the winter of that year at the French settlement near the present site of Lower Granville, on the western bank of Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia. In the spring of 1607 he crossed the Bay of Fundy, entered the harbor of St. John, N. B., and extended his voyage as far as De Monts's Island in the River St. Croix. He returned to France that same year, on the breaking up of De Monts's colony. He was the author of the following works: Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1609; Les Muses de la Nouvelle France; Tableau de la Suisse, auquel sont decrites les Singularites des Alpes, Paris, 1618; La Chasse aux Anglais dans l'isle de Rhe et au Siege de la Rochelle, et la Reduction de cette Ville en 1628, Paris, 1629.

PLYMOUTH HARBOR. This note will modify our remarks on p. 78, Vol. II. Champlain entered this harbor on the 18th of July, 1605, and, lingering but a single day, sailed out of it on the 19th. He named it Port St. Louis, or Port du Cap St. Louis.—Vide antea, pp. 53, 54; Vol. II., pp. 76-78. As the fruit of his brief stay in the harbor of Plymouth, he made an outline sketch of the bay which preserves most of its important features. He delineates what is now called on our Coast Survey maps Long Beach and Duxbury Beach. At the southern extremity of the latter is the headland known as the Gurnet. Within the bay he figures two islands, of which he speaks also in the text. These two islands are mentioned in Mourt's Relation, printed in 1622.—Vide Dexter's ed. p. 60. They are also figured on an old map of the date of 1616, found by J. R. Brodhead in the Royal Archives at the Hague; likewise on a map by Lucini, without date, but, as it has Boston on it, it must have been executed after 1630. These maps may be found in Doc. His. of the State of New York, Vol. I.; Documents relating to the Colonial His. of the State of New York, Vol. I., p. 13. The reader will find these islands likewise indicated on the map of William Wood, entitled The South part of New-England, as it is Planted this yeare, 1634.—Vide New England Prospect, Prince Society ed. They appear also on Blaskowitz's "Plan of Plimouth," 1774.—Vide Changes in the Harbor of Plymouth, by Prof. Henry Mitchell, Chief of Physical Hydrography, U. S. Coast Survey, Report of 1876, Appendix No. 9. In the collections of the Mass. Historical Society for 1793, Vol. II., in an article entitled A Topographical Description of Duxborough, but without the author's name, the writer speaks of two pleasant islands within the harbor, and adds that Saquish was joined to the Gurnet by a narrow piece of land, but for several years the water had made its way across and insulated it.

From the early maps to which we have referred, and the foregoing citations, it appears that there were two islands in the harbor of Plymouth from the time of Champlain till about the beginning of the present century. A careful collation of Champlain's map of the harbor with the recent Coast Survey Charts will render it evident that one of these islands thus figured by Champlain, and by others later, is Saquish Head; that since his time a sand-bank has been thrown up and now become permanent, connecting it with the Gurnet by what is now called Saquish Neck. Prof. Mitchell, in the work already cited, reports that there are now four fathoms less of water in the deeper portion of the roadstead than when Champlain explored the harbor in 1605. There must, therefore, have been an enormous deposit of sand to produce this result, and this accounts for the neck of sand which has been thrown up and become fixed or permanent, now connecting Saquish Head with the Gurnet.

MOUNT DESERT. This island was discovered on the fifth day of September, 1604. Champlain having been comissioned by Sieur De Monts, the Patentee of La Cadie, to make discoveries on the coast southwest of the Saint Croix, left the mouth of that river in a small barque of seventeen or eighteen tons, with twelve sailors and two savages as guides, and anchored the same evening, apparently near Bar Harbor. While here, they explored Frenchman's Bay as far on the north as the Narrows, where Champlain says the distance across to the mainland is not more than a hundred paces. The next day, on the sixth of the month, they sailed two leagues, and came to Otter Creek Cove, which extends up into the island a mile or more, nestling between the spurs of Newport Mountain on the east and Green Mountain on the west. Champlain says this cove is "at the foot of the mountains," which clearly identifies it, as it is the only one in the neighborhood answering to this description. In this cove they discovered several savages, who had come there to hunt beavers and to fish. On a visit to Otter Cove Cliffs in June, 1880, we were told by an old fisherman ninety years of age, living on the borders of this cove, and the statement was confirmed by several others, that on the creek at the head of the cove, there was, within his memory, a well-known beaver dam.

The Indians whose acquaintance Champlain made at this place conducted him among the islands, to the mouth of the Penobscot, and finally up the river, to the site of the present city of Bangor. It was on this visit, on the fifth of September, 1604, that Champlain gave the island the name of Monts-deserts. The French generally gave to places names that were significant. In this instance they did not depart from their usual custom. The summits of most of the mountains on this island, then as now, were only rocks, being destitute of trees, and this led Champlain to give its significant name, which, in plain English, means the island of the desert, waste, or uncultivatable mountains. If we follow the analogy of the language, either French or English, it should be pronounced with the accent on the penult, Mount Desert, and not on the last syllable, as we sometimes hear it. This principle cannot be violated without giving to the word a meaning which, in this connection, would be obviously inappropriate and absurd.

CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE FRANCE, 1632. As the map of 1632 has often been referred to in this work, we have introduced into this volume a heliotype copy. The original was published in the year of its date, but it had been completed before Champlain left Quebec in 1629. The reader will bear in mind that it was made from Champlain's personal explorations, and from such other information as could be obtained from the meagre sources which existed at that early period, and not from any accurate or scientific surveys. The information which he obtained from others was derived from more or less doubtful sources, coming as it did from fishermen, fur-traders, and the native inhabitants. The two former undoubtedly constructed, from time to time, rude maps of the coast for their own use. From these Champlain probably obtained valuable hints, and he was thus able to supplement his own knowledge of the regions with which he was least familiar on the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Beyond the limits of his personal explorations on the west, his information was wholly derived from the savages. No European had penetrated into those regions, if we except his servant, Etienne Brule, whose descriptions could have been of very little service. The deficiencies of Champlain's map are here accordingly most apparent. Rivers and lakes farther west than the Georgian Bay, and south of it, are sometimes laid down where none exist, and, again, where they do exist, none are portrayed. The outline of Lake Huron, for illustration, was entirely misconceived. A river-like line only of water represents Lake Erie, while Lake Michigan does not appear at all.

The delineation of Hudson's Bay was evidently taken from the TABULA NAUTICA of Henry Hudson, as we have shown in Note 297, Vol. II., to which the reader is referred.

It will be observed that there is no recognition on the map of any English settlement within the limits of New England. In 1629, when the Carte de la Nouvelle France was completed, an English colony had been planted at Plymouth, Mass., nine years, and another at Piscataqua, or Portsmouth, N. H., six years. The Rev. William Blaxton had been for several years in occupation of the peninsula of Shawmut, or Boston. Salem had also been settled one or two years. These last two may not, it is true, have come to Champlain's knowledge. But none of these settlements are laid down on the map. The reason of these omissions is obvious. The whole territory from at least the 40th degree of north latitude, stretching indefinitely to the north, was claimed by the French. As possession was, at that day, the most potent argument for the justice of a territorial claim, the recognition, on a French map, of these English settlements, would have been an indiscretion which the wise and prudent Champlain would not be likely to commit.

There is, however, a distinct recognition of an English settlement farther south. Cape Charles and Cape Henry appear at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Virginia is inscribed in its proper place, while Jamestown and Point Comfort are referred to by numbers.

On the borders of the map numerous fish belonging to these waters are figured, together with several vessels of different sizes and in different attitudes, thus preserving their form and structure at that period. The degrees of latitude and longitude are numerically indicated, which are convenient for the references found in Champlain's journals, but are necessarily too inaccurate to be otherwise useful. But notwithstanding its defects, when we take into account the limited means at his command, the difficulties which he had to encounter, the vast region which it covers, this map must be regarded as an extraordinary achievement. It is by far the most accurate in outline, and the most finished in detail, of any that had been attempted of this region anterior to this date.

THE PORTRAITS OF CHAMPLAIN.—Three engraved portraits of Champlain have come to our knowledge. All of them appear to have been after an original engraved portrait by Balthazar Moncornet. This artist was born in Rouen about 1615, and died not earlier than 1670. He practised his art in Paris, where he kept a shop for the sale of prints. Though not eminently distinguished as a skilful artist, he nevertheless left many works, particularly a great number of portraits. As he had not arrived at the age of manhood when Champlain died, his engraving of him was probably executed about fifteen or twenty years after that event. At that time Madame Champlain, his widow, was still living, as likewise many of Champlaln's intimate friends. From some of them it is probable Moncornet obtained a sketch or portrait, from which his engraving was made.

Of the portraits of Champlain which we have seen, we may mention first that in Laverdiere's edition of his works. This is a half-length, with long, curling hair, moustache and imperial. The sleeves of the close-fitting coat are slashed, and around the neck is the broad linen collar of the period, fastened in front with cord and tassels. On the left, in the background, is the promontory of Quebec, with the representation of several turreted buildings both in the upper and lower town. On the border of the oval, which incloses the subject, is the legend, Moncornet Ex c. p. The engraving is coarsely executed, apparently on copper. It is alleged to have been taken from an original Moncornet in France. Our inquiries as to where the original then was, or in whose possession it then was or is now, have been unsuccessful. No original, when inquiries were made by Dr. Otis, a short time since, was found to exist in the department of prints in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

Another portrait of Champlain is found in Shea's translation of Charlevoix's History of New France. This was taken from the portrait of Champlain, which, with that of Cartier, Montcalm, Wolfe, and others, adorns the walls of the reception room of the Speaker of the House of Commons, in the Parliament House at Ottawa, in Canada, which was painted by Thomas Hamel, from a copy of Moncornet's engraving obtained in France by the late M. Faribault. From the costume and general features, it appears to be after the same as that contained in Laverdiere's edition of Champlain's works, to which we have already referred. The artist has given it a youthful appearance, which suggests that the original sketch was made many years before Champlain's death. We are indebted to the politeness of Dr. Shea for the copies which accompany this work.

A third portrait of Champlain may be found in L'Histoire de France, par M. Guizot, Paris, 1876, Vol. v. p. 149. The inscription reads: "CHAMPLAIN [SAMUEL DE], d'apres un portrait grave par Moncornet." It is engraved on wood by E. Ronjat, and represents the subject in the advanced years of his life. In position, costume, and accessories it is widely different from the others, and Moncornet must have left more than one engraving of Champlain, or we must conclude that the modern artists have taken extraordinary liberties with their subject. The features are strong, spirited, and characteristic. A heliotype copy accompanies this volume.



PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.

The journals of Champlain, commonly called his Voyages, were written and published by him at intervals from 1603 to 1632. The first volume was printed in 1603, and entitled,—

1. Des Sauuages, ou, Voyage de Samuel Champlain, de Brouage, faict en la France Nouuelle, l'an mil six cens trois. A Paris, chez Claude de Monstr'oeil, tenant sa boutique en la Cour du Palais, au nom de Jesus. 1604. Auec privilege du Roy. 12mo. 4 preliminary leaves. Text 36 leaves. The title-page contains also a sub-title, enumerating in detail the subjects treated of in the work. Another copy with slight verbal changes has no date on the title-page, but in both the "privilege" is dated November 15, 1603. The copies which we have used are in the Library of Harvard College, and in that of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence, R. I.

An English translation of this issue is contained in Purchas his Pilgrimes. London, 1625, vol. iv., pp. 1605-1619.

The next publication appeared in 1613, with the following title:—

2. Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois, Capitaine ordinaire pour le Roy, en la marine. Divisez en deux livres. ou, journal tres-fidele des observations faites es descouuertures de la Nouuelle France: tant en la description des terres, costes, riuieres, ports, haures, leurs hauteurs, & plusieurs delinaisons de la guide-aymant; qu'en la creance des peuples, leur superslition, facon de viure & de guerroyer: enrichi de quantite de figures, A Paris, chez Jean Berjon, rue S. Jean de Beauuais, au Cheual volant, & en sa boutique au Palais, a la gallerie des prisonniers. M.DC.XIII. Avec privilege dv Roy. 4to. 10 preliminary leaves. Text, 325 pages; table 5 pp. One large folding map. One small map. 22 plates. The title-page contains, in addition, a sub-title in regard to the two maps.

The above-mentioned volume contains, also, the Fourth Voyage, bound in at the end, with the following title:—

Qvatriesme Voyage du Sr de Champlain Capitaine ordinaire povr le Roy en la marine, & Lieutenant de Monseigneur le Prince de Conde en la Nouuelle France, fait en l'annee 1613. 52 pages. Whether this was also issued as a separate work, we are not informed.

The copy of this publication of 1613 which we have used is in the Library of Harvard College.

The next publication of Champlain was in 1619. There was a re-issue of the same in 1620 and likewise in 1627. The title of the last-mentioned issue is as follows:—

3. Voyages et Descovvertures faites en la Novvelle France, depuis l'annee 1615. iusques a la fin de l'annee 1618. Par le Sieur de Champlain, Cappitaine ordinaire pour le Roy en la Mer du Ponant. Seconde Edition. A Paris, chez Clavde Collet, au Palais, en la gallerie des Prisonniers. M.D.C.XXVII. Avec privilege dv Roy. 12mo. 8 preliminary leaves. Text 158 leaves, 6 plates. The title-page contains, in addition, a sub-title, giving an outline of the contents. The edition of 1627, belonging to the Library of Harvard College, contains likewise an illuminated title-page, which we here give in heliotype. As this illuminated title-page bears the date of 1619, it was probably that of the original edition of that date.

The next and last publication of Champlain was issued in 1632, with the following title:—

4. Les Voyages de la Novvelle France occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le Sr de Champlain Xainctongeois, Capitaine pour le Roy en la Marine du Ponant, & toutes les Descouuertes qu'il a faites en ce pais depuis l'an 1603, iusques en l'an 1629. Ou se voit comme ce pays a este premierement descouuert par les Francois, sous l'authorite de nos Roys tres-Chrestiens, iusques au regne de sa Majeste a present regnante Louis XIII. Roy de France & de Navarre. A Paris. Chez Clavde Collet au Palais, en la Gallerie des Prisonniers, a l'Estoille d'Or. M.DC.XXXII. Avec Privilege du Roy.

There is also a long sub-title, with a statement that the volume contains what occurred in New France in 1631. The volume is dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu. 4to. 16 preliminary pages. Text 308 pages. 6 plates, which are the same as those in the edition of 1619. "Seconde Partie," 310 pages. One large general map; table explanatory of map, 8 pages. "Traitte de la Marine," 54 pages. 2 plates. "Doctrine Chrestienne" and "L'Oraison Dominicale," 20 pages. Another copy gives the name of Sevestre as publisher, and another that of Pierre Le Mvr.

The publication of 1632 is stated by Laverdiere to have been reissued in 1640, with a new title and date, but without further changes. This, however, is not found in the National Library at Paris, which contains all the other editions and issues. The copies of the edition of 1632 which we have consulted are in the Harvard College Library and in the Boston Athenaeum.

It is of importance to refer, as we have done, to the particular copy used, for it appears to have been the custom in the case of books printed as early as the above, to keep the type standing, and print issues at intervals, sometimes without any change in the title-page or date, and yet with alterations to some extent in the text. For instance, the copy of the publication of 1613 in the Harvard College Library differs from that in Mrs. Brown's Library, at Providence, in minor points, and particularly in reference to some changes in the small map. The same is true of the publication of 1603. The variations are probably in part owing to the lack of uniformity in spelling at that period.

None of Champlain's works had been reprinted until 1830, when there appeared, in two volumes, a reprint of the publication of 1632, "at the expense of the government, in order to give work to printers." Since then there has been published the elaborate work, with extensive annotations, of the Abbe Laverdiere, as follows:—

OEUVRES DE CHAMPLAIN, PUBLIEES SOUS LE PATRONAGE DE L'UNIVERSITE LAVAL. PAR L'ABBE C. H. LAVERDIERE, M. A. SECONDE EDITION. 6 TOMES. 4TO. QUEBEC: IMPRIME AU SEMINAIRE PAR GEO. E. DESBARATS. 1870.

This contains all the works of Champlain above mentioned, and the text is a faithful reprint from the early Paris editions. It includes, in addition to this, Champlain's narrative of his voyage to the West Indies, in 1598, of which the following is the title:—

Brief Discovrs des choses plvs remarqvables qve Sammvel Champlain de Brovage a reconneues aux Indes Occidentalles au voiage qu'il en a faict en icelles en l'annee mil v[c] iiij.[xx].xix. & en l'annee mil vj[c] i. comme ensuit.

This had never before been published in French, although a translation of it had been issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1859. The MS. is the only one of Champlain's known to exist, excepting a letter to Richelieu, published by Laverdiere among the "Pieces Justificatives." When used by Laverdiere it was in the possession of M. Feret, of Dieppe, but has since been advertised for sale by the Paris booksellers, Maisonneuve & Co., at the price of 15,000 francs, and is now in the possession of M. Pinart.

The volume printed in 1632 has been frequently compared with that of 1613, as if the former were merely a second edition of the latter. But this conveys an erroneous idea of the relation between the two. In the first place, the volume of 1632 contains what is not given in any of the previous publications of Champlain. That is, it extends his narrative over the period from 1620 to 1632. It likewise goes over the same ground that is covered not only by the volume of 1613, but also by the other still later publications of Champlain, up to 1620. It includes, moreover, a treatise on navigation. In the second place, it is an abridgment, and not a second edition in any proper sense. It omits for the most part personal details and descriptions of the manners and customs of the Indians, so that very much that is essential to the full comprehension of Champlain's work as an observer and explorer is gone. Moreover, there seems a to be some internal evidence indicating that this abridgment was not made by Champlain himself, and Laverdiere suggests that the work has been tampered with by another hand. Thus, all favorable allusions to the Recollets, to whom Champlain was friendly, are modified or expunged, while the Jesuits are made to appear in a prominent and favorable light. This question has been specially considered by Laverdiere in his introduction to the issue of 1632, to which the reader is referred.

The language used by Champlain is essentially the classic French of the time of Henry IV. The dialect or patois of Saintonge, his native province, was probably understood and spoken by him; but we have not discovered any influence of it in his writings, either in respect to idiom or vocabulary. An occasional appearance at court, and his constant official intercourse with public men of prominence at Paris and elsewhere, rendered necessary strict attention to the language he used.

But though using in general the language of court and literature, he offends not unfrequently against the rules of grammar and logical arrangement. Probably his busy career did not allow him to read, much less study, at least in reference to their style, such masterpieces of literature as the "Essais" of Montaigne, the translations of Amyot, or the "Histoire Universelle" of D'Aubigne. The voyages of Cartier he undoubtedly read; but, although superior in point of literary merit to Champlaih's writings, they were, by no-means without their blemishes, nor were they worthy of being compared with the classical authors to which we have alluded. But Champlain's discourse is so straightforward, and the thought so simple and clear, that the meaning is seldom obscure, and his occasional violations of grammar and looseness of style are quite pardonable in one whose occupations left him little time for correction and revision. Indeed, one rather wonders that the unpretending explorer writes so well. It is the thought, not the words, which occupies his attention. Sometimes, after beginning a period which runs on longer than usual, his interest in what he has to narrate seems so completely to occupy him that he forgets the way in which he commenced, and concludes in a manner not in logical accordance with the beginning. We subjoin a passage or two illustrative of his inadvertencies in respect to language. They are from his narrative of the voyage of 1603, and the text of the Paris edition is followed:

1. "Au dit bout du lac, il y a des peuples qui sont cabannez, puis on entre dans trois autres riuieres, quelques trois ou quatre iournees dans chacune, ou au bout desdites riuieres, il y a deux ou trois manieres de lacs, d'ou prend la source du Saguenay." Chap. iv.

2. "Cedit iour rengeant tousiours ladite coste du Nort, iusques a vn lieu ou nous relachasmes pour les vents qui nous estoient contraires, ou il y auoit force rochers & lieux fort dangereux, nous feusmes trois iours en attendant le beau temps" Chap. v.

3. "Ce seroit vn grand bien qui pourrait trouuer a la coste de la Floride quelque passage qui allast donner proche du & susdit grand lac." Chap. x.

4. "lesquelles [riuieres] vont dans les terres, ou le pays y est tres-bon & fertille, & de fort bons ports." Chap. x.

5. "Il y a aussi vne autre petite riuiere qui va tomber comme a moitie chemin de celle par ou reuint ledict sieur Preuert, ou sont comme deux manieres de lacs en ceste-dicte riuiere." Chap. xii.

The following passages are taken at random from the voyages of 1604-10, as illustrative of Champlain's style in general:

1. Explorations in the Bay of Fundy, Voyage of 1604-8. "De la riuiere sainct Iean nous fusmes a quatre isles, en l'vne desquelles nous mismes pied a terre, & y trouuasmes grande quantite d'oiseaux appeliez Margos, don't nous prismes force petits, qui sont aussi bons que pigeonneaux. Le sieur de Poitrincourt s'y pensa esgarer: Mais en fin il reuint a nostre barque comme nous l'allions cerchant autour de isle, qui est esloignee de la terre ferme trois lieues." Chap iii.

2. Explorations in the Vineyard Sound. Voyage of 1604-8. "Comme nous eusmes fait quelques six ou sept lieues nous eusmes cognoissance d'vne isle que nous nommasmes la soupconneuse, pour auoir eu plusieurs fois croyance de loing que ce fut autre chose qu'vne isle, puis le vent nous vint contraire, qui nous fit relascher au lieu d'ou nous estions partis, auquel nous fusmes deux on trois jours sans que durant ce temps il vint aucun sauuage se presenter a nous." Chap. xv.

3. Fight with the Indians on the Richelieu. Voyage of 1610.

"Les Yroquois s'estonnoient du bruit de nos arquebuses, & principalement de ce que les balles persoient mieux que leurs flesches; & eurent tellement l'espouuante de l'effet qu'elles faisoient, voyant plusieurs de leurs compaignons tombez morts, & blessez, que de crainte qu'ils auoient, croyans ces coups estre sans remede ils se iettoient par terre, quand ils entendoient le bruit: aussi ne tirions gueres a faute, & deux ou trois balles a chacun coup, & auios la pluspart du temps nos arquebuses appuyees sur le bord de leur barricade." Chap. ii.

The following words, found in the writings of Champlain, are to be noted as used by him in a sense different from the ordinary one, or as not found in the dictionaries. They occur in the voyages of 1603 and 1604-11. The numbers refer to the continuous pagination in the Quebec edition:

appoil, 159. A species of duck. (?)

catalougue, 266. A cloth used for wrapping up a dead body. Cf. Spanish catalogo.

deserter, 211, et passim. In the sense of to clear up a new country by removing the trees, &c.

esplan, 166. A small fish, like the equille of Normandy.

estaire, 250. A kind of mat. Cf. Spanish estera.

fleurir, 247. To break or foam, spoken of the waves of the sea.

legueux, 190. Watery.(?) Or for ligneux, fibrous.(?)

marmette, 159. A kind of sea-bird.

Matachias, 75, et passim. Indian word for strings of beads, used to ornament the person.

papesi, 381. Name of one of the sails of a vessel.

petunoir, 79. Pipe for smoking.

Pilotua, 82, et passim. Word used by the Indians for soothsayer or medicine-man.

souler, 252. In sense of, to be wont, accustomed.

truitiere, 264. Trout-brook.

The first and main aim of the translator has been to give the exact sense of the original, and he has endeavored also to reproduce as far as possible the spirit and tone of Champlain's narrative. The important requisite in a translation, that it should be pure and idiomatic English, without any transfer of the mode of expression peculiar to the foreign language, has not, it is hoped, been violated, at least to any great extent. If, perchance, a French term or usage has been transferred to the translation, it is because it has seemed that the sense or spirit would be better conveyed in this way. At best, a translation comes short of the original, and it is perhaps pardonable at times to admit a foreign term, if by this means the sense or style seems to be better preserved. It is hoped that the present work has been done so as to satisfy the demands of the historian, who may find it convenient to use it in his investigations.

C. P. O.

BOSTON, June 17, 1880



THE SAVAGES

OR VOYAGE OF

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN

OF BROUAGE,

Made in New France in the year 1603.

DESCRIBING,

The customs, mode of life, marriages, wars, and dwellings of the Savages of Canada. Discoveries for more than four hundred and fifty leagues in the country. The tribes, animals, rivers, lakes, islands, lands, trees, and fruits found there. Discoveries on the coast of La Cadie, and numerous mines existing there according to the report of the Savages.

PARIS.

Claude de Monstr'oeil, having his store in the Court of the Palace, under the name of Jesus.

WITH AUTHORITY OF THE KING.



DEDICATION.

To the very noble, high and powerful Lord Charles De Montmorency, Chevalier of the Orders of the King, Lord of Ampuille and of Meru, Count of Secondigny, Viscount of Melun, Baron of Chateauneuf and of Gonnort, Admiral of France and of Brittany.

_My Lord,

Although many have written about the country of Canada, I have nevertheless been unwilling to rest satisfied with their report, and have visited these regions expressly in order to be able to render a faithful testimony to the truth, which you will see, if it be your pleasure, in the brief narrative which I address to you, and which I beg you may find agreeable, and I pray God for your ever increasing greatness and prosperity, my Lord, and shall remain all my life,

Your most humble and obedient servant, S. CHAMPLAIN_.



EXTRACT FROM THE LICENSE

By license of the King, given at Paris on the 15th of November, 1603, signed Brigard.

Permission is given to Sieur de Champlain to have printed by such printer as may seem good to him, a book which he has composed, entitled, "The Savages, or Voyage of Sieur de Champlain, made in the Year 1603;" and all book-sellers and printers of this kingdom are forbidden to print, sell, or distribute said book, except with the consent of him whom he shall name and choose, on penalty of a fine of fifty crowns, of confiscation, and all expenses, as is more fully stated in the license.

Said Sieur de Champlain, in accordance with his license, has chosen and given permission to Claude de Monstr'oeil, book-seller to the University of Paris, to print said book, and he has ceded and transferred to him his license, so that no other person can print or have printed, sell, or distribute it, during the time of five years, except with the consent of said Monstr'oeil, on the penalties contained in the said license.



THE SAVAGES,

VOYAGE OF SIEUR DE CHAMPLAIN

MADE IN THE YEAR 1603.



CHAPTER I.

BRIEF NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE FROM HONFLEUR IN NORMANDY TO THE PORT OF TADOUSSAC IN CANADA

We set out from Honfleur on the 15th of March, 1603. On the same day we put back to the roadstead of Havre de Grace, the wind not being favorable. On Sunday following, the 16th, we set sail on our route. On the 17th, we sighted d'Orgny and Grenesey, [121] islands between the coast of Normandy and England. On the 18th of the same month, we saw the coast of Brittany. On the 19th, at 7 o'clock in the evening we reckoned that we were off Ouessant. [122] On the 21st, at 7 o'clock in the morning, we met seven Flemish vessels, coming, as we thought from the Indies. On Easter day, the 30th of the same month, we encountered a great tempest, which seemed to be more lightning than wind, and which lasted for seventeen days, though not continuing so severe as it was on the first two days. During this time, we lost more than we gained. On the 16th of April, to the delight of all, the weather began to be more favorable, and the sea calmer than it had been, so that we continued our course until the 18th, when we fell in with a very lofty iceberg. The next day we sighted a bank of ice more than eight leagues long, accompanied by an infinite number of smaller banks, which prevented us from going on. In the opinion of the pilot, these masses of ice were about a hundred or a hundred and twenty leagues from Canada. We were in latitude 45 deg. 40', and continued our course in 44 deg..

On the 2nd of May we reached the Bank at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, in 44 deg. 40'. On the 6th of the same month we had approached so near to land that we heard the sea beating on the shore, which, however, we could not see on account of the dense fog, to which these coasts are subject. [123] For this reason we put out to sea again a few leagues, until the next morning, when the weather being clear, we sighted land, which was Cape St. Mary. [124]

On the 12th we were overtaken by a severe gale, lasting two days. On the 15th we sighted the islands of St. Peter. [125] On the 17th we fell in with an ice-bank near Cape Ray, six leagues in length, which led us to lower sail for the entire night that we might avoid the danger to which we were exposed. On the next day we set sail and sighted Cape Ray, [126] the islands of St. Paul, and Cape St. Lawrence. [127] The latter is on the mainland lying to the south, and the distance from it to Cape Ray is eighteen leagues, that being the breadth of the entrance to the great bay of Canada. [128] On the same day, about ten o'clock in the morning, we fell in with another bank of ice, more than eight leagues in length. On the 20th, we sighted an island some twenty-five or thirty leagues long, called Anticosty, [129] which marks the entrance to the river of Canada. The next day, we sighted Gaspe, [130] a very high land, and began to enter the river of Canada, coasting along the south side as far as Montanne, [131] distant sixty-five leagues from Gaspe. Proceeding on our course, we came in sight of the Bic, [132] twenty leagues from Mantanne and on the southern shore; continuing farther, we crossed the river to Tadoussac, fifteen leagues from the Bic. All this region is very high, barren, and unproductive.

On the 24th of the month, we came to anchor before Tadoussac, [133] and on the 26th entered this port, which has the form of a cove. It is at the mouth of the river Saguenay, where there is a current and tide of remarkable swiftness and a great depth of water, and where there are sometimes troublesome winds, [134] in consequence of the cold they bring. It is stated that it is some forty-five or fifty leagues up to the first fall in this river, and that it flows from the northwest. The harbor of Tadoussac is small, in which only ten or twelve vessels could lie; but there is water enough on the east, sheltered from the river Saguenay, and along a little mountain, which is almost cut off by the river. On the shore there are very high mountains, on which there is little earth, but only rocks and sand, which are covered, with pine, cypress and fir, [135] and a smallish species of trees. There is a small pond near the harbor, enclosed by wood-covered mountains. At the entrance to the harbor, there are two points: the one on the west side extending a league out into the river, and called St. Matthew's Point; [136] the other on the southeast side extending out a quarter of a league, and called All-Devils' Point. This harbor is exposed to the winds from the south, southeast, and south-southwest. The distance from St. Matthew's Point to All-Devils' Point is nearly a league; both points are dry at low tide.

ENDNOTES:

121. Alderney and Guernsey. French maps at the present day for Alderney have d'Aurigny.

122. The islands lying off Finistere, on the western extremity of Brittany in France.

123. The shore which they approached was probably Cape Pine, east of Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.

124. In Placentia bay, on the southern coast of Newfoundland.

125. West of Placentia Bay.

126. Cape Ray is northwest of the islands of St. Peter.

127. Cape St. Lawrence, now called Cape North, is the northern extremity of the island of Cape Breton, and the island of St. Paul is a few miles north of it.

128. The Gulf or Bay of St. Lawrence. It was so named by Jacques Cartier on his second voyage, in 1535. Nous nommasmes la dicte baye la Sainct Laurens, Brief Recit, 1545, D'Avezac ed. p. 8. The northeastern part of it is called on De Laet's map, "Grand Baye."

129. "This island is about one hundred and forty miles long, thirty-five miles broad at its widest part, with an average breadth of twenty-seven and one-half miles."—Le Moine's Chronicles of the St. Lawrence, p.100. It was named by Cartier in 1535, the Island of the Assumption, having been discovered on the 15th of August, the festival of the Assumption. Nous auons nommes l'ysle de l'Assumption.—Brief Recit, 1545, D'Avenzac's ed. p. 9. Alfonse, in his report of his voyage of 1542, calls it the Isle de l'Ascension, probably by mistake. "The Isle of Ascension is a goodly isle and a goodly champion land, without any hills, standing all upon white rocks and Alabaster, all covered with wild beasts, as bears, Luserns, Porkespicks." Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 292. Of this island De Laet says, "Elle est nommee el langage des Sauvages Natiscotec"—Hist. du Nouveau Monde, a Leyde, 1640, p.42. Vide also Wyet's Voyage in Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 241. Laverdiere says the Montagnais now call it Natascoueh, which signifies, where the bear is caught. He cites Thevet, who says it is called by the savages, Naticousti, by others Laisple. The use of the name Anticosty by Champlain, now spelled Anticosti, would imply that its corruption from the original, Natiscotec, took place at a very early date. Or it is possible that Champlain wrote it as he heard it pronounced by the natives, and his orthography may best represent the original.

130. Gachepe, so written in the text, subsequently written by the author Gaspey, but now generally Gaspe. It is supposed to have been derived from the Abnaquis word Katsepi8i, which means what is separated from the rest, and to have reference to a remarkable rock, three miles above Cape Gaspe, separated from the shore by the violence of the waves, the incident from which it takes its name.—Vide Voyages de Champlain, ed. 1632, p. 91; Chronicles of the St. Lawrence, by J. M. Le Moine, p. 9.

131. A river flowing into the St. Lawrence from the south in latitude 48 deg. 52' and in longitude west from Greenwich 67 deg. 32', now known as the Matane.

132. For Bic, Champlain has Pic, which is probably a typographical error. It seems probable that Bic is derived from the French word bicoque, which means a place of small consideration, a little paltry town. Near the site of the ancient Bic, we now have, on modern maps, Bicoque Rocks, Bicquette Light, Bic Island, Bic Channel, and Bic Anchorage. As suggested by Laverdiere, this appears to be the identical harbor entered by Jacques Cartier, in 1535, who named if the Isles of Saint John, because he entered it on the day of the beheading of St. John, which was the 29th of August. Nous les nommasmes les Ysleaux sainct Jehan, parce que nous y entrasmes le jour de la decollation dudict sainct. Brief Recit, 1545, D'Avezac's ed. p. 11. Le Jeune speaks of the Isle du Bic in 1635. Vide Relation des Jesuites, p. 19.

133. Tadoussac, or Tadouchac, is derived from the word totouchac, which in Montagnais means breasts, and Saguenay signifies water which springs forth, from the Montagnais word saki-nip.—Vide Laverdiere in loco. Tadoussac, or the breasts from which water springs forth, is naturally suggested by the rocky elevations at the base of which the Saguenay flows.

134. Impetueux, plainly intended to mean troublesome, as may be seen from the context.

135. Pine, pins. The white pine, Pinus strobus, or Strobus Americanus, grows as far north as Newfoundland, and as far south as Georgia. It was observed by Captain George Weymouth on the Kennebec, and hence deals afterward imported into England were called Weymouth pine—Vide Chronological History of Plants, by Charles Picketing, M.D., Boston, 1879, p. 809. This is probably the species here referred to by Champlain. Cypress, Cyprez. This was probably the American arbor vitae. Thuja occidentalis, a species which, according to the Abbe Laverdiere, is found in the neighborhood of the Saguenay. Champlain employed the same word to designate the American savin, or red cedar. Juniperus Virginiana, which he found on Cape Cod—Vide Vol. II. p. 82. Note 168.

Fir, sapins. The fir may have been the white spruce, Abies alba, or the black spruce, Abies nigra, or the balsam fir or Canada balsam, Abies balsamea, or yet the hemlock spruce, Abies Canadaisis.

136. St. Matthew's Point, now known as Point aux Allouettes, or Lack Point.—Vide Vol. II. p 165, note 292. All-Devils' Point, now called Pointe aux Vaches. Both of these points had changed their names before the publication of Champlain's ed., 1632.—Vide p. 119 of that edition. The last mentioned was called by Champlain, in 1632, pointe aux roches. Laverdiere thinks roches was a typographical error, as Sagard, about the same time, writes vaches.—Vide Sagard. Histoire du Canada, 1636, Stross. ed., Vol I p. 150.

We naturally ask why it was called pointe aux vaches, or point of cows. An old French apothegm reads Le diable est aux vaches, the devil is in the cows, for which in English we say, "the devil is to pay." May not this proverb have suggested vaches as a synonyme of diables?



CHAPTER II.

FAVORABLE RECEPTION GIVEN TO THE FRENCH BY THE GRAND SAGAMORE OF THE SAVAGES OF CANADA—THE BANQUETS AND DANCES OF THE LATTER—THEIR WAR WITH THE IROQUOIS.—THE MATERIAL OF WHICH THEIR CANOES AND CABINS ARE MADE, AND THEIR MODE OF CONSTRUCTION—INCLUDING ALSO A DESCRIPTION OF ST MATTHEW'S POINT.

On the 27th, we went to visit the savages at St. Matthew's point, distant a league from Tadoussac, accompanied by the two savages whom Sieur du Pont Grave took to make a report of what they had seen in France, and of the friendly reception the king had given them. Having landed, we proceeded to the cabin of their grand Sagamore [137] named Anadabijou, whom we found with some eighty or a hundred of his companions celebrating a tabagie, that is a banquet. He received us very cordially, and according to the custom of his country, seating us near himself, with all the savages arranged in rows on both sides of the cabin. One of the savages whom we had taken with us began to make an address, speaking of the cordial reception the king had given them, and the good treatment they had received in France, and saying they were assured that his Majesty was favorably disposed towards them, and was desirous of peopling their country, and of making peace with their enemies, the Iroquois, or of sending forces to conquer them. He also told them of the handsome manors, palaces, and houses they had seen, and of the inhabitants and our mode of living. He was listened to with the greatest possible silence. Now, after he had finished his address, the grand Sagamore, Anadabijou, who had listened to it attentively, proceeded to take some tobacco, and give it to Sieur du Pont Grave of St. Malo, myself, and some other Sagamores, who were near him. After a long smoke, he began to make his address to all, speaking with gravity, stopping at times a little, and then resuming and saying, that they truly ought to be very glad in having his Majesty for a great friend. They all answered with one voice, Ho, ho, ho, that is to say yes, yes. He continuing his address said that he should be very glad to have his Majesty people their land, and make war upon their enemies; that there was no nation upon earth to which they were more kindly disposed than to the French. finally he gave them all to understand the advantage and profit they could receive from his Majesty. After he had finished his address, we went out of his cabin, and they began to celebrate their tabagie or banquet, at which they have elk's meat, which is similar to beef, also that of the bear, seal and beaver, these being their ordinary meats, including also quantities of fowl. They had eight or ten boilers full of meats, in the middle of this cabin, separated some six feet from each other, each one having its own fire. They were seated on both sides, as I stated before, each one having his porringer made of bark. When the meat is cooked, some one distributes to each his portion in his porringer, when they eat in a very filthy manner. For when their hands are covered with fat, they rub them on their heads or on the hair of their dogs of which they have large numbers for hunting. Before their meat was cooked, one of them arose, took a dog and hopped around these boilers from one end of the cabin to the other. Arriving in front of the great Sagamore, he threw his dog violently to the ground, when all with one voice exclaimed, Ho, ho, ho, after which he went back to his place. Instantly another arose and did the same, which performance was continued until the meat was cooked. Now after they had finished their tabagie, they began to dance, taking the heads of their enemies, which were slung on their backs, as a sign of joy. One or two of them sing, keeping time with their hands, which they strike on their knees: sometimes they stop, exclaiming, Ho, ho, ho, when they begin dancing again, puffing like a man out of breath. They were having this celebration in honor of the victory they had obtained over the Iroquois, several hundred of whom they had killed, whose heads they had cut off and had with them to contribute to the pomp of their festivity. Three nations had engaged in the war, the Etechemins, Algonquins, and Montagnais. [138] These, to the number of a thousand, proceeded to make war upon the Iroquois, whom they encountered at the mouth of the river of the Iroquois, and of whom they killed a hundred. They carry on war only by surprising their enemies; for they would not dare to do so otherwise, and fear too much the Iroquois, who are more numerous than the Montagnais, Etechemins, and Algonquins.

On the 28th of this month they came and erected cabins at the harbor of Tadoussac, where our vessel was. At daybreak their grand Sagamore came out from his cabin and went about all the others, crying out to them in a loud voice to break camp to go to Tadoussac, where their good friends were. Each one immediately took down his cabin in an incredibly short time, and the great captain was the first to take his canoe and carry it to the water, where he embarked his wife and children and a quantity of furs. Thus were launched nearly two hundred canoes, which go wonderfully fast; for, although our shallop was well manned, yet they went faster than ourselves. Two only do the work of propelling the boat, a man and a woman. Their canoes are some eight or nine feet long, and a foot or a foot and a half broad in the middle, growing narrower towards the two ends. They are very liable to turn over, if one does not understand how to manage them, for they are made of the bark of trees called bouille, [139] strengthened on the inside by little ribs of wood strongly and neatly made. They are so light that a man can easily carry one, and each canoe can carry the weight of a pipe. When they wish to go overland to some river where they have business, they carry their canoes with them.

Their cabins are low and made like tents, being covered with the same kind of bark as that before mentioned. The whole top for the space of about a foot they leave uncovered, whence the light enters; and they make a number of fires directly in the middle of the cabin, in which there are sometimes ten families at once. They sleep on skins, all together, and their dogs with them. [140]

They were in number a thousand persons, men, women and children. The place at St. Matthew's Point, where they were first encamped, is very pleasant. They were at the foot of a small slope covered with trees, firs and cypresses. At St. Matthew's Point there is a small level place, which is seen at a great distance. On the top of this hill there is a level tract of land, a league long, half a league broad, covered with trees. The soil is very sandy, and contains good pasturage. Elsewhere there are only rocky mountains, which are very barren. The tide rises about this slope, but at low water leaves it dry for a full half league out.

ENDNOTES:

137. Sagamo, thus written in the French According to Lafleche, as cited by Laverdiere, this word, in the Montagnais language, is derived from tchi, great and okimau, chief, and consequently signifies the Great Chief.

138. The Etechemins, may be said in general terms to have occupied the territory from St. John, N. B., to Mount Desert Island, in Maine, and perhaps still further west, but not south of Saco. The Algonquins here referred to were those who dwelt on the Ottawa River. The Montagnais occupied the region on both sides of the Saguenay, having their trading centre at Tadoussac. War had been carried on for a period we know not how long, perhaps for several centuries, between these allied tribes and the Iroquois.

139. Bouille for bouleau, the birch-tree. Betula papyracea, popularly known as the paper or canoe birch. It is a large tree, the bark white, and splitting into thin layers. It is common in New England, and far to the north The white birch, Betula alba, of Europe and Northern Asia, is used for boat-building at the present day.—Vide Chronological History of Plants, by Charles Pickering, M.D., Boston, 1879, p. 134.

140. The dog was the only domestic animal found among the aborigines of this country. "The Australians," says Dr. Pickering, "appear to be the only considerable portion of mankind destitute of the companionship of the dog. The American tribes, from the Arctic Sea to Cape Horn, had the companionship of the dog, and certain remarkable breeds had been developed before the visit of Columbus" (F. Columbus 25); further, according to Coues, the cross between the coyote and female dog is regularly procured by our northwestern tribes, and, according to Gabb, "dogs one-fourth coyote are pointed out; the fact therefore seems established that the coyote or American barking wolfe, Canis latrans, is the dog in its original wild state."—Vide Chronological History of Plants, etc., by Charles Pickering, M.D., Boston, 1879, p. 20.

"It was believed by some for a length of time that the wild dog was of recent introduction to Australia: this is not so."—Vide Aborigines of Victoria, by R. Brough Smyth, London, 1878, Vol. 1. p. 149. The bones of the wild dog have recently been discovered in Australia, at a depth of excavation, and in circumstances, which prove that his existence there antedates the introduction of any species of the dog by Europeans. The Australians appear, therefore, to be no exception to the universal companionship of the dog with man.



CHAPTER III.

THE REJOICINGS OF THE INDIANS AFTER OBTAINING A VICTORY OVER THEIR ENEMIES—THEIR DISPOSITION, ENDURANCE OF HUNGER, AND MALICIOUSNESS.—THEIR BELIEFS AND FALSE OPINIONS, COMMUNICATION WITH EVIL SPIRITS—THEIR GARMENTS, AND HOW THEY WALK ON THE SNOW—THEIR MANNER OF MARRIAGE, AND THE INTERMENT OF THEIR DEAD.

On the 9th of June the savages proceeded to have a rejoicing all together, and to celebrate their tabagie, which I have before described, and to dance, in honor of their victory over their enemies. Now, after they had feasted well, the Algonquins, one of the three nations, left their cabins and went by themselves to a public place. Here they arranged all their wives and daughters by the side of each other, and took position themselves behind them, all singing in the manner I have described before. Suddenly all the wives and daughters proceeded to throw off their robes of skins, presenting themselves stark naked, and exposing their sexual parts. But they were adorned with matachiats, that is beads and braided strings, made of porcupine quills, which they dye in various colors. After finishing their songs, they all said together, Ho, ho, ho: at the same instant all the wives and daughters covered themselves with their robes, which were at their feet. Then, after stopping a short time, all suddenly beginning to sing throw off their robes as before. They do not stir from their position while dancing, and make various gestures and movements of the body, lifting one foot and then the other, at the same time striking upon the ground. Now, during the performance of this dance, the Sagamore of the Algonquins, named Besouat, was seated before these wives and daughters, between two sticks, on which were hung the heads of their enemies. Sometimes he arose and went haranguing, and saying to the Montagnais and Etechemins: "Look! how we rejoice in the victory that we have obtained over our enemies; you must do the same, so that we may be satisfied." Then all said together, Ho, ho, ho. After returning to his position, the grand Sagamore together with all his companions removed their robes, making themselves stark naked except their sexual parts, which are covered with a small piece of skin. Each one took what seemed good to him, as matachiats, hatchets, swords, kettles, fat, elk flesh, seal, in a word each one had a present, which they proceeded to give to the Algonquins. After all these ceremonies, the dance ceased, and the Algonquins, men and women, carried their presents into their cabins. Then two of the most agile men of each nation were taken, whom they caused to run, and he who was the fastest in the race, received a present.

All these people have a very cheerful disposition, laughing often; yet at the same time they are somewhat phlegmatic. They talk very deliberately, as if desiring to make themselves well understood, and stopping suddenly, they reflect for a long time, when they resume their discourse. This is their usual manner at their harangues in council, where only the leading men, the elders, are present, the women and children not attending at all.

All these people suffer so much sometimes from hunger, on account of the severe cold and snow, when the animals and fowl on which they live go away to warmer countries, that they are almost constrained to eat one another. I am of opinion that if one were to teach them how to live, and instruct them in the cultivation of the soil and in other respects, they would learn very easily, for I can testify that many of them have good judgment and respond very appropriately to whatever question may be put to them. [141] They have the vices of taking revenge and of lying badly, and are people in whom it is not well to put much confidence, except with caution and with force at hand. They promise well, but keep their word badly.

Most of them have no law, so far as I have been able to observe or learn from the great Sagamore, who told me that they really believed there was a God, who created all things. Whereupon I said to him: that, "Since they believed in one sole God, how had he placed them in the world, and whence was their origin." He replied: that, "After God had made all things, he took a large number of arrows, and put them in the ground; whence sprang men and women, who had been multiplying in the world up to the present time, and that this was their origin." I answered that what he said was false, but that there really was one only God, who had created all things upon earth and in the heavens. Seeing all these things so perfect, but that there was no one to govern here on earth, he took clay from the ground, out of which he created Adam our first father. While Adam was sleeping, God took a rib from his side, from which he formed Eve, whom he gave to him as a companion, and, I told him, that it was true that they and ourselves had our origin in this manner, and not from arrows, as they suppose. He said nothing, except that he acknowledged what I said, rather than what he had asserted. I asked him also if he did not believe that there was more than one only God. He told me their belief was that there was a God, a Son, a Mother, and the Sun, making four; that God, however, was above all, that the Son and the Sun were good, since they received good things from them; but the Mother, he said, was worthless, and ate them up; and the Father not very good. I remonstrated with him on his error, and contrasted it with our faith, in which he put some little confidence. I asked him if they had never seen God, nor heard from their ancestors that God had come into the world. He said that they had never seen him; but that formerly there were five men who went towards the setting sun, who met God, who asked them: "Where are you going?" they answered: "We are going in search of our living." God replied to them: "You will find it here." They went on, without paying attention to what God had said to them, when he took a stone and touched two of them with it, whereupon they were changed to stones; and he said again to the three others: "Where are you going?" They answered as before, and God said to them again: "Go no farther, you will find it here." And seeing that nothing came to them, they went on; when God took two sticks, with which he touched the two first, whereupon they were transformed into sticks, when the fifth one stopped, not wishing to go farther. And God asked him again: "Where are you going?" "I am going in search of my living." "Stay and thou shalt find it." He staid without advancing farther, and God gave him some meat, which he ate. After making good cheer, he returned to the other savages, and related to them all the above.

He told me also that another time there was a man who had a large quantity of tobacco (a plant from which they obtain what they smoke), and that God came to this man, and asked him where his pipe was. The man took his pipe, and gave it to God, who smoked much. After smoking to his satisfaction, God broke the pipe into many pieces, and the man asked: "Why hast thou broken my pipe? thou seest in truth that I have not another." Then God took one that he had, and gave it to him, saying: "Here is one that I will give you, take it to your great Sagamore; let him keep it, and if he keep it well, he will not want for any thing whatever, neither he nor all his companions." The man took the pipe, and gave it to his great Sagamore; and while he kept it, the savages were in want of nothing whatever: but he said that afterwards the grand Sagamore lost this pipe, which was the cause of the severe famines they sometimes have. I asked him if he believed all that; he said yes, and that it was the truth. Now I think that this is the reason why they say that God is not very good. But I replied, "that God was in all respects good, and that it was doubtless the Devil who had manifested himself to those men, and that if they would believe as we did in God they would not want for what they had need of; that the sun which they saw, the moon and the stars, had been created by this great God, who made heaven and earth, but that they have no power except that which God has given them; that we believe in this great God, who by His goodness had sent us His dear Son who, being conceived of the Holy Spirit, was clothed with human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived thirty years on earth, doing an infinitude of miracles, raising the dead, healing the sick, driving out devils, giving sight to the blind, teaching men the will of God his Father, that they might serve, honor and worship Him, shed his blood, suffered and died for us, and our sins, and ransomed the human race, that, being buried, he rose again, descended into hell, and ascended into heaven, where he is seated on the right hand of God his Father." [142] I told him that this was the faith of all Christians who believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that these, nevertheless, are not three Gods, but one the same and only God, and a trinity in which there is no before nor after, no greater nor smaller; that the Virgin Mary, mother of the Son of God, and all the men and women who have lived in this world doing the commandments of God, and enduring martyrdom for his name, and who by the permission of God have done miracles, and are saints in heaven in his paradise, are all of them praying this Great Divine Majesty to pardon us our errors and sins which we commit against His law and commandments. And thus, by the prayers of the saints in heaven and by our own prayers to his Divine Majesty, He gives what we have need of, and the devil has no power over us and can do us no harm. I told them that if they had this belief, they would be like us, and that the devil could no longer do them any harm, and that they would not lack what they had need of.

Then this Sagamore replied to me that he acknowledged what I said. I asked him what ceremonies they were accustomed to in praying to their God. He told me that they were not accustomed to any ceremonies, but that each prayed in his heart as he desired. This is why I believe that they have no law, not knowing what it is to worship and pray to God, and living, the most of them, like brute beasts. But I think that they would speedily become good Christians, if people were to colonize their country, of which most of them were desirous.

There are some savages among them whom they call Pilotoua, [143] who have personal communications with the devil. Such an one tells them what they are to do, not only in regard to war, but other things; and if he should command them to execute any undertaking, as to kill a Frenchman or one of their own nation, they would obey his command at once.

They believe, also, that all dreams which they have are real; and many of them, indeed, say that they have seen in dreams things which come to pass or will come to pass. But, to tell the truth in the matter, these are visions of the devil, who deceives and misleads them. This is all that I have been able to learn from them in regard to their matters of belief, which is of a low, animal nature.

All these people are well proportioned in body, without any deformity, and are also agile. The women are well-shaped, full and plump, and of a swarthy complexion, on account of the large amount of a certain pigment with which they rub themselves, and which gives them an olive color. They are clothed in skins, one part of their body being covered and the other left uncovered. In winter they provide for their whole body, for they are dressed in good furs, as those of the elk, otter, beaver, seal, stag, and hind, which they have in large quantities. In winter, when the snows are heavy, they make a sort of raquette [144] two or three times as large as those in France. These they attach to their feet, and thus walk upon the snow without sinking in; for without them, they could not hunt or make their way in many places.

Their manner of marriage is as follows: When a girl attains the age of fourteen or fifteen years, she may have several suitors and friends, and keep company with such as she pleases. At the end of some five or six years she may choose that one to whom her fancy inclines as her husband, and they will live together until the end of their life, unless, after living together a certain period, they fail to have children, when the husband is at liberty to divorce himself and take another wife, on the ground that his own is of no worth. Accordingly, the girls are more free than the wives; yet as soon as they are married they are chaste, and their husbands are for the most part jealous, and give presents to the father or relatives of the girl whom they marry. This is the manner of marriage, and conduct in the same.

In regard to their interments, when a man or woman dies, they make a trench, in which they put all their property, as kettles, furs, axes, bows and arrows, robes, and other things. Then they put the body in the trench, and cover it with earth, laying on top many large pieces of wood, and erecting over all a piece of wood painted red on the upper part. They believe in the immortality of the soul, and say that when they die themselves, they shall go to rejoice with their relatives and friends in other lands.

ENDNOTES:

141. Vide Vol. II of this work, p 190.

142. This summary of the Christian faith is nearly in the words of the Apostles Creed.

143. On Pilotoua or Pilotois, vide Vol. II. note 341.

144. Une maniere de raquette. The snow-shoe, which much resembles the racket or battledore, an instrument used for striking the ball in the game of tennis. This name was given for the want of one more specific.



CHAPTER IV.

THE RIVER SAGUENAY AND ITS SOURCE.

On the 11th of June, I went some twelve or fifteen leagues up the Saguenay, which is a fine river, of remarkable depth. For I think, judging from what I have heard in regard to its source, that it comes from a very high place, whence a torrent of water descends with great impetuosity. But the water which proceeds thence is not capable of producing such a river as this, which, however, only extends from this torrent, where the first fall is, to the harbor Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, a distance of some forty-five or fifty leagues, it being a good league and a half broad at the widest place, and a quarter of a league at the narrowest; for which reason there is a strong current. All the country, so far as I saw it, consisted only of rocky mountains, mostly covered with fir, cypress, and birch; a very unattractive region in which I did not find a level tract of land either on the one side or the other. There are some islands in the river, which are high and sandy. In a word, these are real deserts, uninhabitable for animals or birds. For I can testify that when I went hunting in places which seemed to me the most attractive, I found nothing whatever but little birds, like nightingales and swallows, which come only in summer, as I think, on account of the excessive cold there, this river coming from the northwest.

They told me that, after passing the first fall, whence this torrent comes, they pass eight other falls, when they go a day's journey without finding any; then they pass ten other falls and enter a lake [145] which it requires two days to cross, they being able to make easily from twelve to fifteen leagues a day. At the other extremity of the lake is found a people who live in cabins. Then you enter three other rivers, up each of which the distance is a journey of some three or four days. At the extremity of these rivers are two or three bodies of water, like lakes, in which the Saguenay has its source, from which to Tadoussac is a journey of ten days in their canoes. There is a large number of cabins on the border of these rivers, occupied by other tribes which come from the north to exchange with the Montagnais their beaver and marten skins for articles of merchandise, which the French vessels furnish to the Montagnais. These savages from the north say that they live within sight of a sea which is salt. If this is the case, I think that it is a gulf of that sea which flows from the north into the interior, and in fact it cannot be otherwise. [146] This is what I have learned in regard to the River Saguenay.

ENDNOTES:

145. This was Lake St John. This description is given nearly verbatim in Vol. II. p. 169.—Vide notes in the same volume, 294, 295. 146. Champlain appears to have obtained from the Indians a very correct idea not only of the existence but of the character of Hudson's Bay, although that bay was not discovered by Hudson till about seven years later than this.



CHAPTER V.

DEPARTURE FROM TADOUSSAC FOR THE FALL.—DESCRIPTION OF HARE ISLAND, ISLE DU COUDRE, ISLE D'ORLEANS, AND SEVERAL OTHERS—OUR ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC

On Wednesday, the eighteenth day of June, we set out from Tadoussac for the Fall. [147] We passed near an island called Hare Island, [148] about two leagues, from the northern shore and some seven leagues from Tadoussac and five leagues from the southern shore. From Hare Island we proceeded along the northern coast about half a league, to a point extending out into the water, where one must keep out farther. This point is one league [149] from an island called Isle au Coudre, about two leagues wide, the distance from which to the northern shore is a league. This island has a pretty even surface, growing narrower towards the two ends. At the western end there are meadows and rocky points, which extend out some distance into the river. This island is very pleasant on account of the woods surrounding it. It has a great deal of slate-rock, and the soil is very gravelly; at its extremity there is a rock extending half a league out into the water. We went to the north of this island, [150] which is twelve leagues distant from Hare Island.

On the Thursday following, we set out from here and came to anchor in a dangerous cove on the northern shore, where there are some meadows and a little river, [151] and where the savages sometimes erect their cabins. The same day, continuing to coast along on the northern shore, we were obliged by contrary winds to put in at a place where there were many very dangerous rocks and localities. Here we stayed three days, waiting for fair weather. Both the northern and Southern shores here are very mountainous, resembling in general those of the Saguenay.

On Sunday, the twenty-second, we set out for the Island of Orleans, [152] in the neighborhood of which are many islands on the southern shore. These are low and covered with trees, Seem to be very pleasant, and, so far as I could judge, some of them are one or two leagues and others half a league in length. About these islands there are only rocks and shallows, so that the passage is very dangerous.

They are distant some two leagues from the mainland on the south. Thence we coasted along the Island of Orleans on the south. This is distant a league from the mainland on the north, is very pleasant and level, and eight leagues long. The coast on the south is low for some two leagues inland; the country begins to be low at this island which is perhaps two leagues distant from the southern shore. It is very dangerous passing on the northern shore, on account of the sand-banks and rocks between the island and mainland, and it is almost entirely dry here at low tide.

At the end of this island I saw a torrent of water [153] which descended from a high elevation on the River of Canada. Upon this elevation the land is uniform and pleasant, although in the interior high mountains are seen some twenty or twenty-five leagues distant, and near the first fall of the Saguenay.

We came to anchor at Quebec, a narrow passage in the River of Canada, which is here some three hundred paces broad. [154] There is, on the northern side of this passage, a very high elevation, which falls off on two sides. Elsewhere the country is uniform and fine, and there are good tracts full of trees, as oaks, cypresses, birches, firs, and aspens, also wild fruit-trees and vines which, if they were cultivated, would, in my opinion, be as good as our own. Along the shore of Quebec, there are diamonds in some slate-rocks, which are better than those of Alencon. From Quebec to Hare Island is a distance of twenty-nine leagues.

ENDNOTES:

147. Saut de St Louis, about three leagues above Montreal.

148. Isle au Lieure Hare Island, so named by Cartier from the great number of hares which he found there. Le soir feusmes a ladicte ysle, ou trouuasmes grand nombre de lieures, desquelz eusmes quantite: & par ce la nommasmes l'ysle es lieures.—Brief Recit, par Jacques Cartier, 1545, D'Avezac ed p. 45.

The distances are here overestimated. From Hare Island to the northern shore the distance is four nautical miles, and to the southern six.

149. The point nearest to Hare Island is Cape Salmon, which is about six geographical miles from the Isle au Coudres, and we should here correct the error by reading not one but two leagues. The author did not probably intend to be exact.

150. Isle au Coudre.—Vide Brief Recit, par Jacques Cartier, 1545, D'Avezac ed. p. 44; also Vol. II. of this work, p. 172. Charlevoix says, whether from tradition or on good authority we know not, that "in 1663 an earthquake rooted up a mountain, and threw it upon the Isle au Coudres, which made it one-half larger than before."— Letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguieres, London, 1763, p. 15.