THE SITUATION OF PLACE ROYALE DESCRIBED "And near this Place Royale there is a little river running back a goodly way into the interior, all along which there are more than sixty acres of cleared land, like meadows, where one might sow grain and make gardens. Formerly savages tilled there. There were also a great number of other beautiful meadows, to support as many cattle as one wishes, and all kinds of trees that we have in our forests at home, with a great many vines, walnuts, plum trees, cherries, strawberries and other kinds which are very good to eat. Among others there is one very excellent, which has a sweet taste resembling that of plantains (which is a fruit of the Indies), and is as white as snow, with a leaf like that of the nettle, and running on trees or the ground like ivy. Fishing is very good there, and there are all the kinds that we have in France, and a great many others that we do not have, which are very good; as is also game of all kinds; and hunting is good, stags, hinds, does, caribous, rabbits, lynxes, bears, beavers and other little animals which so abound that while we were at these rapids we never were without them." PLACE ROYALE CLEARED AND A HARBOUR REVETMENT WALL BUILT "After having made a careful exploration, then, and found this place one of the most beautiful on this river, I at once had the woods cut down[26] and cleared from this Place Royale, to make it level and ready for building. Water can easily be made to flow around it, making a little island of it, and a settlement can be made there as one may wish. "There is a little island[27] twenty fathoms from this Place Royale which is about one hundred paces long, whereon could be put up a good, well defended set of buildings. There are also a great many meadows containing good potter's clay, whether for bricks or to build with, which is a great convenience. I had some of it worked up, and made a wall of it four feet thick, and from three to four feet high and ten fathoms long, to see how it would last in the winter when then the floods came down, which in my opinion, would not rise to this wall although the land is about twelve feet above that river, which is quite high." ST. HELEN'S ISLAND NAMED "In the middle of the river there is an island about three-quarters of a league in circumference, where a good and strong town could be built and I named it Ile de Ste. Hélène.[28] These rapids descend into a sort of lake where there are two or three islands and some beautiful meadows." CHAMPLAIN PLANTS GARDENS "While waiting for the savages I had two gardens made: one in the meadows and the other in the woods which I had cleared; and the second day of June I sowed some seeds in them, which came up in perfect condition and in a little while, which showed the goodness of the soil.