two merchants of that
port, members of the company. De Monts and Poutrincourt went thither by
post. Lescarbot soon followed, and no sooner reached Rochelle than he
penned and printed his Adieu a la France, a poem which gained for him
some credit.

More serious matters awaited him, however, than this dalliance with
the Muse. Rochelle was the centre and citadel of Calvinism,--a town of
austere and grim aspect, divided, like Cisatlantic communities of
later growth, betwixt trade and religion, and, in the interest of both,
exacting a deportment of discreet and well-ordered sobriety. "One must
walk a strait path here," says Lescarbot, "unless he would hear from
the mayor or the ministers." But the mechanics sent from Paris, flush of
money, and lodged together in the quarter of St. Nicolas, made day and
night hideous with riot, and their employers found not a few of them in
the hands of the police. Their ship, bearing the inauspicious name of
the "Jonas," lay anchored in the stream, her cargo on board, when a
sudden gale blew her adrift. She struck on a pier, then grounded on the
flats, bilged, careened, and settled in the mud. Her captain, who was
ashore, with Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, and others, hastened aboard, and
the pumps were set in motion; while all Rochelle, we are told, came
to gaze from the ramparts, with faces of condolence, but at heart well
pleased with the disaster. The ship and her cargo were saved, but
she must be emptied, repaired, and reladen. Thus a month was lost; at
length, on the thirteenth of May, 1606, the disorderly crew were all
brought on board, and the "Jonas" put to sea. Poutrincourt and Lescarbot
had charge of the expedition, De Monts remaining in France.

Lescarbot describes his emotions at finding himself on an element so
deficient in solidity, with only a two-inch plank between him and
death. Off the Azores, they spoke a supposed pirate. For the rest, they
beguiled the voyage by harpooning porpoises, dancing on deck in calm
weather, and fishing for cod on the Grand Bank. They were two months on
their way; and when, fevered with eagerness to reach land, they listened
hourly for the welcome cry, they were involved in impenetrable fogs.
Suddenly the mists parted, the sun shone forth, and streamed fair and
bright over the fresh hills and forests of the New World, in near view
before them. But the black rocks lay between, lashed by the snow-white
breakers. "Thus," writes Lescarbot, "doth a man so