Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02Champlain, Samuel de
History
Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02
Champlain, Samuel de
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Indians of North America -- Canada; New France -- Discovery and exploration
On the next day we went to the above-mentioned cape, where there are three
islands [145] near the main land, full of wood of different kinds, as at
Choüacoet and all along the coast; and still another flat one, where there
are breakers, and which extends a little farther out to Sea than the
others, on which there is no wood at all. We named this place Island Cape,
[146] near which we saw a canoe containing five or six savages, who came
out near our barque, and then went back and danced on the beach. Sieur de
Monts sent me on shore to observe them, and to give each one of them a
knife and some biscuit, which caused them to dance again better than
before. This over, I made them understand, as well as I could, that I
desired them to show me the course of the shore. After I had drawn with a
crayon the bay, [147] and the Island Cape, where we were, with the same
crayon they drew the outline of another bay, [148] which they represented
as very large; here they placed six pebbles at equal distances apart,
giving me to understand by this that these signs represented as many chiefs
and tribes. [149] Then they drew within the first mentioned bay a river
which we had passed, which has shoals and is very long. [150] We found in
this place a great many vines, the green grapes on which were a little
larger than peas, also many nut-trees, the nuts on which were no larger
than musket-balls. The savages told us that all those inhabiting this
country cultivated the land and sowed seeds like the others, whom we had
before seen. The latitude of this place is 43° and some minutes. [151]
Sailing half a league farther, we observed several savages on a rocky
point, [152] who ran along the shore, dancing as they went, to their
companions to inform them of our coming. After pointing out to us the
direction of their abode, they made a signal with smoke to show us the
place of their settlement. We anchored near a little island, [153] and sent
our canoe with knives and cakes for the savages. From the large number of
those we saw, we concluded that these places were better inhabited than the
others we had seen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account