entures with them,
were all new subjects at the time, and he treats them so that they keep
their freshness. He is at no pains to conceal his low opinion of the
coast savages. Concerning the Acadian Micmacs he says little, but what
he does say is chiefly a comment upon the wretchedness of their life
during the winter. As he went farther south he found an improvement in
the food supply. At the mouth of the Saco he and De Monts saw well-kept
patches of Indian corn three feet high, although it was not yet
midsummer. Growing with the corn were beans, pumpkins, and squashes,
all in flower; and the cultivation of tobacco is also noted. Here the
savages formed a permanent settlement and lived within a palisade. Still
farther south, in the neighbourhood of Cape Cod, Champlain found maize
five and a half feet high, a considerable variety of squashes, tobacco,
and edible roots which tasted like artichokes.

But whether the coast Indians were Micmacs or Armouchiquois, whether
they were starving or well fed, Champlain tells us little in their
praise. Of the Armouchiquois he says:

I cannot tell what government they have, but I think
that in this respect they resemble their neighbours,
who have none at all. They know not how to worship or
pray; yet, like the other savages, they have some
superstitions, which I shall describe in their place.
As for weapons, they have only pikes, clubs, bows and
arrows. It would seem from their appearance that they
have a good disposition, better than those of the
north, but they are all in fact of no great worth.
Even a slight intercourse with them gives you at once
a knowledge of them. They are great thieves, and if
they cannot lay hold of any thing with their hands,
they try to do so with their feet, as we have oftentimes
learned by experience. I am of opinion that if they
had any thing to exchange with us they would not give
themselves to thieving. They bartered away to us their
bows, arrows, and quivers for pins and buttons; and
if they had had any thing else better they would have
done the same with it. It is necessary to be on one's
guard against this people and live in a state of
distrust of them, yet without letting them perceive it.

This passage at least shows that Champlain sought to be just to the
savages of the Atlantic. Though he found them thieves, he is willing to
conjecture that they would not steal if they had anyth