l, made friends of them and quickly won numbers of them to learn
their language and adopt their religion. From intermarriages of
Frenchmen with Indian women there grew up in Canada a large class of
half-breed "voyageurs" (travelers) and "coureurs de bois"
(wood-rangers), who in times of peace were skilful hunters and
pioneers, and in times {115} of war helped to bind fast the ties
between the two races.

In this pleasant fashion the third winter of the colony wore away with
little suffering. Only four men died. With the coming of spring all
began to bestir themselves in various activities, and everything looked
hopeful.

Alas! a bitter disappointment was at hand. News came from France that
Monts's monopoly of the fur-trade had been rescinded. The merchants of
various ports in France, incensed at being shut out from a lucrative
traffic, had used money freely at court and had succeeded in having his
grant withdrawn. All the money spent in establishing the colony was to
go for nothing.

Worst of all, Port Royal must be abandoned. Its cornfields and gardens
must become a wilderness, and the fair promise of a permanent colony
must wither. It was a cruel blow to Champlain and his associates, and
not less so to the Indians, who followed their departing friends with
bitter lamentations.

[1] A low, sandy island, about one hundred miles southeast of Nova
Scotia, to which it belongs.

[2] See "The World's Discoverers," p. 140.

[3] See "Pioneer Spaniards in North America," p. 206.

[4] At the time of Champlain's coming on the scene, fierce war existed
between the Algonquins and the Iroquois. This fact accounts for the
disappearance of the thrifty Iroquois village, with its palisade and
cornfields, which Cartier had found on the spot, sixty-eight years
earlier.

[5] These Massachusetts Algonquins evidently were of a higher type than
their kinsmen on the St. Lawrence. Far from depending wholly on
hunting and fishing, they lived in permanent villages and were largely
an agricultural people, growing considerable crops. At the time of the
coming of the Pilgrims, whom they instructed in corn-planting, this
thrifty native population had been sadly wasted by an epidemic of
small-pox.

{119}

Chapter IX

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN (_Continued_)

THE FRENCH ON THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES

Champlain's Motives in returning to America.--How the Monopoly of the
Fur-trade affected the Men engaged in it.