[Footnote: The history of this colony records an amusing story concerning the long life of the natives. A party visited a chief in the midst of the wilderness who gravely assured them that he was the father of five generations, and had lived 250 years. Opposite him, in the same hut, sat his father, a mere skeleton, whose "age was so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could speak one onely word but with exceeding great paine." The credulous Frenchmen gazed with awe on this wonderful pair, and congratulated themselves on having come to such a land,--where certainly there would be no need of Ponce de Leon's fabled fountain.] Soon the colonists were reduced to the verge of starvation. [Footnote: Their sufferings were horrible. Weak and emaciated, they fed themselves with roots, sorrel, pounded fish-bones, and even roasted snakes. "Oftentimes," says Laudonniere, "our poor soldiers were constrained to give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any time they shewed unto the savages the excessive price which they tooke, these villaines would answer them roughly: 'If thou make so great account of thy merchandise, eat it, and we will eat our fish;' then fell they out a laughing, and mocked us with open throat."] They were on the point of leaving, when they were reinforced by Ribaut. The French now seemed fairly fixed on the coast of Florida. The Spaniards, however, claimed the country. Melendez, about this time, had made a settlement in St. Augustine. Leading an expedition northward through the wilderness, in the midst of a fearful tempest, he attacked Fort Carolina and massacred almost the entire population. CHAMPLAIN (sham-plane), at the beginning of the seventeenth century, crossed the Atlantic in two pigmy barks--one of twelve, the other of fifteen tons--and ascended the St. Lawrence on an exploring tour. At Hochelaga all was changed. The Indian town had vanished, and not a trace remained of the savage population which Cartier saw there seventy years before. [Footnote: This fact illustrates the frequent and rapid changes which took place among the aboriginal tribes.] Champlain was captivated by the charms of the new world, and longed to plant a French empire and the Catholic faith amid its savage wilds. DE MONTS (mong) received a grant of all the territory between the fortieth and forty-sixth parallels of latitude. [Footnote: Between the sites of Philadelphia and Montreal.] This tract was termed _Acadia_, a name afterward confined to New Brunswick and the adjacent islands, and now to Nova Scotia. With Champlain, he founded Port Royal, N. S., in 1605. This was _the first permanent French settlement in America._ It was three years before a cabin was built in Canada, and two before the James River was discovered.