wash, where fisher boats reap other
kind of harvest, richer than the silver harvest of the sea,--harvest of
beaver, and otter, and marten; up the dim amber waters of the Saguenay,
within the shadow of the somber gorge, trafficking baubles of bead and
red print for furs, precious furs. Pontgrave, merchant prince, comes out
with fifty men in 1600, and leaves sixteen at Tadoussac, ostensibly as
colonists, really as wood lopers to scatter through the forests and learn
the haunts of the Indians. Pontgrave comes back for men and furs in
1601, and comes again in 1603 with two vessels, accompanied by a soldier
of fortune from the French court, who acts as geographer,--Samuel
Champlain, now in his thirty-sixth year, with service in war to his
credit and a journey across Spanish America.

{33} The two vessels are barely as large as coastal schooners; but
shallow draft enables them to essay the Upper St. Lawrence far as Mount
Royal, where Cartier had voyaged. Of the palisaded Indian fort not a
vestige remains. War or plague has driven the tribe westward, but it is
plain to the court geographer that, in spite of former failures, this
land of rivers like lakes, and valleys large as European kingdoms, is fit
for French colonists.

[Illustration: THE FANTASTIC ROCKS OF GASPE]

When Champlain returns to France the King readily grants to Sieur de
Monts a region roughly defined as anywhere between Pennsylvania and
Labrador, designated Acadia. This region Sieur de Monts is to colonize
in return for a monopoly of the fur trade. When other traders complain,
De Monts quiets them by letting them all buy shares in the venture. With
him are associated as motley a throng of treasure seekers as ever
stampeded for gold. There is Samuel Champlain, the court geographer;
there is Pontgrave, the merchant prince, on a separate {34} vessel with
stores for the colonists. Pontgrave is to attend especially to the fur
trading. There are the Baron de Poutrincourt and his young son,
Biencourt, and other noblemen looking for broader domains in the New
World; and there are the usual riffraff of convicts taken from dungeons.
Priests go to look after the souls of the Catholics, Huguenot ministers
to care for the Protestants, and so valiantly do these dispute with
tongues and fists that the sailors threaten to bury them in the same
grave to see if they can lie at peace in death.

[Illustration: SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN]

Before the boats sight Acadia, it