Now, after hearing from the pilot all these things, I asked him why the Basque had come on board of our vessel. He told me that he came in behalf of their master, named Darache, and his companions, to obtain assurance from me that I would do them no harm, when our vessel entered the harbor. I replied that I could not give any until I had seen Pont Gravé. The Basque said that, if I had need of any thing in their power, they would assist me accordingly. What led them to use this language was simply their recognition of having done wrong, as they confessed, and the fear that they would not be permitted to engage in the whale-fishery. After talking at length, I went ashore to see Pont Gravé, in order to deliberate as to what was to be done. I found him very ill. He related to me in detail all that had happened. We concluded that we could only enter the harbor by force, and that the settlement must not be given up for this year, so that we considered it best, in order not to make a bad cause out of a just one, and thus work our ruin, to give them assurances on my part so long as I should remain there, and that Pont Gravé should undertake nothing against them, but that justice should be done in France, and their differences should be settled there. Darache, master of the vessel, begged me to go on board, where he gave me a cordial reception. After a long conference, I secured an agreement between Pont Gravé and him, and required him to promise that he would undertake nothing against Pont Gravé, or what would be prejudicial to the King and Sieur de Monts; that, if he did the contrary, I should regard my promise as null and void. This was agreed to, and signed by each. In this place were a number of savages who had come for traffic in furs, several of whom came to our vessel with their canoes, which are from eight to nine paces long, and about a pace or pace and a half broad in the middle, growing narrower towards the two ends. They are very apt to turn over, in case one does not understand managing them, and are made of birch bark, strengthened on the inside by little ribs of white cedar, very neatly arranged; they are so light that a man can easily carry one. Each can carry a weight equal to that of a pipe. When they want to go overland to a river where they have business, they carry them with them. From Choüacoet along the coast as far as the harbor of Tadoussac, they are all alike. ENDNOTES: 283. Champlain arrived on the shores of America on the 8th of May, 1604, and left on the 3rd of September, 1607. He had consequently been on our coast three years, three months, and twenty-five days. 284. _The late King Henry the Great_. Henry IV. died in 1610, and this introductory passage was obviously written after that event, probably near the time of the publication of his voyages in 1613. 285. In the preliminary voyage of 1603, Champlain ascended the St. Lawrence as far as the falls of St. Louis, above Montreal.