The good seaman, in fact, quietly resided in Paris, but his unquiet thoughts were ever turning westward. He was enamored with the strange, hemlock-wooded country whose rugged hills and blue rivers were mirrored upon his memory and continually urged him to “come back and explore!” Even as Commander Peary has said that he pined for Arctic ice and snow, so, with restless longing, the noble-hearted Frenchman ever sighed for days upon the broad surface of the St. Lawrence, with starlit nights filled with the balsamy odors of the forests. Upon the banks near the mountain of Montreal he had determined to lay out a settlement, from which, as a base, the waters might be traced back far into the vast interior of the continent. With eager and tempestuous thoughts, he yearned to be once more scudding by the two peaks, which held high their heads as the Saguenay discharged its swift-moving current into the rushing St. Lawrence, far, far beneath them. The danger-loving De Monts returned after four years of adventure. To him Champlain expressed his views, which met with a ready response. Yes, indeed, they would go forth together, would trade with the Indians, bring back a cargo of furs, and would found a town by those whirling rapids, ’neath the mountain of Montreal. On April the 16th. 1604, they sailed in a ship of 150 tons from Havre de Grace, with a mixed company of priests, Huguenot ministers, impressed rogues, and honest settlers. Another vessel, under one Pontgrave, had preceded them by eight days, for she was laden with goods for the Indian trade at Tadoussac. By the third of June the adventurous Champlain neared the mouth of the Saguenay. The robust Frenchmen eagerly breathed in the clear air of the St. Lawrence, tinged with the faint smell of the spruce and the balsamy hemlock. The little vessel, swept by the tide and eddies, held its course up the stream until the Island of Orleans was reached. Then it was run towards the northern bank and was anchored beneath the high cliffs of Quebec. The men went ashore, axes rang against the tree trunks, and soon a number of wooden buildings arose on the brink of the St. Lawrence, not far from the present market-place of the Lower Town. A settlement had been founded in the wilderness, which was to exist for centuries.