While these preparations were in progress, two excursions were made; one towards the west, and another northeasterly towards the head of the Bay of Fundy. Lescarbot accompanied the former, passing several days at St. John and the island of St. Croix, which was the westerly limit of his explorations and personal knowledge of the American coast. The other excursion was conducted by De Poutrincourt, accompanied by Champlain, the object of which was to search for ores of the precious metals, a species of wealth earnestly coveted and overvalued at the court of France. They sailed along the northern shores of Nova Scotia, entered Mines Channel, and anchored off Cape Fendu, now Anglicised into the uneuphonious name of Cape Split. De Poutrincourt landed on this headland, and ascended a steep and lofty summit which is not less than four hundred feet in height. Moss several feet in thickness, the growth of centuries, had gathered upon it, and, when he stood upon the pinnacle, it yielded and trembled like gelatine under his feet. He found himself in a critical situation. From this giddy and unstable height he had neither the skill or courage to return. After much anxiety, he was at length rescued by some of his more nimble sailors, who managed to put a hawser over the summit, by means of which he safely descended. They named it _Cap de Poutrincourt_. They proceeded as far as the head of the Basin of Mines, but their search for mineral wealth was fruitless, beyond a few meagre specimens of copper. Their labors were chiefly rewarded by the discovery of a moss-covered cross in the last stages of decay, the relic of fishermen, or other Christian mariners, who had, years before, been upon the coast. The exploring parties having returned to Port Royal, to their settlement in what is now known as Annapolis Basin, the bulk of the colonists departed in three barques for Canseau, on the 30th of July, while De Poutrincourt and Champlain, with a complement of sailors, remained some days longer, that they might take with them specimens of wheat still in the field and not yet entirely ripe. On the 11th of August they likewise bade adieu to Port Royal amid the tears of the assembled savages, with whom they had lived in friendship, and who were disappointed and grieved at their departure. In passing round the peninsula of Nova Scotia in their little shallop, it was necessary to keep close in upon the shore, which enabled Champlain, who had not before been upon the coast east of La Hève, to make a careful survey from that point to Canseau, the results of which are fully stated in his notes, and delineated on his map of 1613. On the 3d of September, the "Jonas," bearing away the little French colony, sailed out of the harbor of Canseau, and, directing its course towards the shores of France, arrived at Saint Malo on the 1st of October, 1607.