of the bay after leaving Port Royal, and
discovered the river which the Indians called Ouigoudi, or highway, and
De Monts renamed St. John, as he saw it first on the festival of that
saint. Proceeding along the northern shores of the bay the expedition
came to a river which falls into Passamaquoddy Bay, and now forms the
{54} boundary between the United States and the eastern provinces of
Canada. This river ever since has been called the river of the Holy
Cross (Sainte-Croix) though the name was first given by De Monts to an
islet, well within the mouth of the stream, which he chose as the site
of the first French settlement on the northeast coast of America.
Buildings were soon erected for the accommodation of some eighty
persons, as well as a small fort for their protection on the rocky
islet. [1]

While the French settlement was preparing for the winter, Champlain
explored the eastern coast from the St. Croix to the Penobscot, where
he came to the conclusion that the story of a large city on its banks
was evidently a mere invention of the imaginative mind. He also was
the first of Europeans, so far as we know, to look on the mountains and
cliffs of the island--so famous as a summer resort in these later
times--which he very aptly named Monts-Deserts. During the three years
Champlain remained in Acadia he made explorations and surveys of the
southern coasts of Nova Scotia from Canseau to Port Royal, of the
shores of the Bay of Fundy, and of the coast of New England from the
St. Croix to Vineyard Sound.

Poutrincourt, who had received from De Monts a grant of the country
around Port Royal, left his companions in their dreary home in the
latter part of August and sailed for France, with the object of making
arrangements for settling his new domain in {55} Acadia. He found that
very little interest was taken in the new colony of which very
unsatisfactory reports were brought back to France by his companions
though he himself gave a glowing account of its beautiful scenery and
resources.

While Poutrincourt was still in France, he was surprised to learn of
the arrival of De Monts with very unsatisfactory accounts of the state
of affairs in the infant colony. The adventurers had very soon found
St. Croix entirely unfitted for a permanent settlement, and after a
most wretched winter had removed to the sunny banks of the Annapolis,
which was then known as the Equille,[2] and subsequently as the
Dauphin. Poutrincou