t they saw nothing to compare with
Annapolis Basin, narrow of entrance, landlocked, placid as a lake, with
shores wooded like a park; and back they cruised to Ste. Croix in August,
to move the colony across to Nova Scotia, to Annapolis Basin of Acadia.
While Champlain and Pontgrave volunteer to winter in the wilderness, De
Monts goes home to look after his monopoly in France.

What had De Monts to show for his two years' labor? His company had
spent what would be $20,000 in modern money, and all returns from fur
trade had been swallowed up prolonging the colony. While Champlain
hunted moose in the woods round Port Royal and Pontgrave bartered furs
during the winter of 1605-1606, De Monts and Poutrincourt and the gay
lawyer Marc Lescarbot fight for the life of the monopoly in Paris and
point out to the clamorous merchants that the building of a French empire
in the New World is of more importance than paltry profits. De Monts
remains in France to stem the tide rising against him, while Poutrincourt
and Lescarbot sail on the _Jonas_ with more colonists and supplies for
Port Royal.

Noon, July 27, 1606, the ship slips into the Basin of Annapolis. To
Lescarbot, the poet lawyer, the scene is a fairyland--the silver flood of
the harbor motionless as glass, the wooded meadows dank with bloom, the
air odorous of woodland smells, the blue hills rimming round the sky, and
against the woods of the north shore the chapel spire and thatch roofs
and slab walls of the little fort, the one oasis of life in a wilderness.
{38} As the sails rattled down and the anchor dropped, not a soul
appeared from the fort. The gates were bolted fast. The _Jonas_ runs up
the French ensign. Then a canoe shoots out from the brushwood, paddled
by the old chief Membertou. He signals back to the watchers behind the
gates. Musketry shots ring out welcome. The ship's cannon answer,
setting the waters churning. Trumpets blare. The gates fly wide and out
marches the garrison--two lone Frenchmen. The rest, despairing of a ship
that summer, have cruised along to Cape Breton to obtain supplies from
French fishermen, whence, presently, come Pontgrave and Champlain,
overjoyed to find the ship from France. Poutrincourt has a hogshead of
wine rolled to the courtyard and all hands fitly celebrate.

[Illustration: BUILDINGS ON STE. CROIX ISLAND, 1613 (From Champlain's
diagram)]

When Pontgrave carries the furs to France, Marc Lescarbot, the lawyer
po