As it was, he did his immediate duty and restored
the peace of Huron and Algonquin. In partial compensation for the
alluring journey he relinquished, he had a better opportunity to study
the Hurons in their settlements and to investigate their relations with
their neighbours--the Tobacco Nation, the Neutral Nation, _les Cheveux
Releves_, and the Race of Fire. Hence the _Voyage_ of 1615 not only
describes the physical aspects of Huronia, but contains intimate
details regarding the life of its people--their wigwams, their food,
their manner of cooking, their dress, their decorations, their marriage
customs, their medicine-men, their burials, their assemblies, their
agriculture, their amusements, and their mode of fishing. It is
Champlain's most {115} ambitious piece of description, far less
detailed than the subsequent narratives of the Jesuits, but in
comparison with them gaining impact from being less diffuse.

It was on May 20, 1616, that Champlain left the Huron country, never
again to journey thither or to explore the recesses of the forest.
Forty days later he reached the Sault St Louis, and saw once more his
old friend Pontgrave. Thenceforward his life belongs not to the
wilderness, but to Quebec.

[1] An Algonquin tribe dwelling to the north of the St Lawrence, for
the most part between the Saguenay and the St Maurice.

[2] Henry Hudson, an English mariner with a Dutch crew, entered the
mouth of the Hudson in a boat called the _Half Moon_ on September 4,
1609. As named by him, the river was called the 'Great North River of
New Netherland.'

[3] Marsolet's defence was that he acted under constraint.

[4] This map will be found in _The Jesuit Missions_ in this Series, and
also in vol. xxxiv of _The Jesuit Relations_, ed. Thwaites.

{116}

CHAPTER V

CHAMPLAIN'S LAST YEARS

When Champlain reached the Sault St Louis on July 1, 1616, his career
as an explorer had ended. The nineteen years of life that still
remained he gave to Quebec and the duties of his lieutenancy.

By this time he had won the central position in his own domain.
Question might arise as to the terms upon which a monopoly of trade
should be granted, or as to the persons who should be its recipients.
But whatever company might control the trade, Champlain was the king's
representative in New France. When Boyer affronted him, the council
had required that a public apology should be offered. When Montmorency
instituted th