ENDNOTES:
198. Richmond Island.—Vide antea, note 123. The ripe grapes which he saw were the Fox Grape. Vitis labrusca, which ripens in September. The fruit is of a dark purple color, tough and musky. The Isabella, common in our markets, is derived from it. It is not quite clear whether those seen in an unripe state were another species or not. If they were, they were the Frost Grape, Vitis cardifolia, which are found in the northern parts of New England. The berry is small, black or blue, having a bloom, highly acid, and ripens after frosts. This island, so prolific in grapes, became afterward a centre of commercial importance. On Josselyn's voyage of 1638, he says: "The Six and twentieth day, Capt. Thomas Cammock went aboard of a Barke of 300 Tuns, laden with Island Wine, and but 7 men in her, and never a Gun, bound for Richmond's Island, Set out by Mr. Trelaney, of Plimouth"— Voyages, 1675, Boston, Veazie's ed., 1865, p. 12.
199. Messamouët was a chief from the Port de la Hève, and was accompanied by Secondon, also a chief from the river St. John. They had come to Saco to dispose of a quantity of goods which they had obtained from the French fur-traders. Messamouët made an address on the occasion, in which he stated that he had been in France, and had been entertained at the house of Mons. de Grandmont, governor of Bavonne.—Vide His. Nou. France, par Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, p. 559, et seq.
200. Cape Anne.
201. Gloucester Bay, formerly called Cape Anne Harbor, which, as we shall see farther on, they named Beauport, the beautiful harbor.
202. Brazilian peas. This should undoubtedly read Brazilian beans. Pois du Brésil is here used apparently by mistake for febues de Brésil.— Vide antea, note 127.
203. Chards, a vegetable dill, composed of the footstocks and midrib of artichokes, cardoons, or white beets. The "very good roots," des racines qui font bonnes, were Jerusalem Artichokes, Helianthus tuberofus, indigenous to the northern part of this continent. The Italians had obtained it before Champlain's time, and named it Girasole, their word for sunflower, of which the artichoke is a species. This word, girasole, has been singularly corrupted in England into Jerusalem; hence Jerusalem artichoke, now the common name of this plant. We presume that there is no instance on record of its earlier cultivation in New England than at Nauset in 1605, vide antea, p. 82, and here at Gloucester in 1606.
204. Under the word noyers, walnut-trees, Champlain may have comprehended the hickories, Carya alba and porcina, and perhaps the butternut, Juglans cinerea, all of which might have been seen at Gloucester. It is clear from his description that he saw at Saco the hickory, Carya porcina, commonly known as the pig-nut or broom hickory. He probably saw likewise the shag bark, Carya alba, as both are found growing wild there even at the present day.—Vide antea, p. 67. Both the butternut and the hickories are exclusively of American origin; and there was no French name by which they could be more accurately designated. Noyer is applied in France to the tree which produces the nut known in our markets as the English walnut. Josselyn figures the hickory under the name of walnut.—Vide New Eng. Rarities, Tuckerman's ed., p. 97. See also Wood's New Eng. Prospect, 1634, Prince Soc. ed., p. 18.
205. The trees here mentioned are such probably as appeared to Champlain especially valuable for timber or other practical uses.
The cypress, cyprès, has been already referred to in note 168. It is distinguished for its durability, its power of resisting the usual agencies of decay, and is widely used for posts, and sleepers on the track of railways, and to a limited extent for cabinet work, but less now than in earlier times. William Wood says of it: "This wood is more desired for ornament than substance, being of color red and white, like Eugh, smelling as sweet as Iuniper; it is commonly used for seeling of houses, and making of Chests, boxes and staves."—Wood's New Eng. Prospect, 1634, Prince Soc. ed., p. 19.
The sassafras, Sassafras officinate, is indigenous to this continent, and has a spicy, aromatic flavor, especially the bark and root. It was in great repute as a medicine for a long time after the discovery of this country. Cargoes of it were often taken home by the early voyagers for the European markets; and it is said to have sold as high as fifty livres per pound. Dr. Jacob Bigelow says a work entitled "Sassafrasologia" was written to celebrate its virtues; but its properties are only those of warm aromatics. Josselyn describes it, and adds that it does not "grow beyond Black Point eastward," which is a few miles north-east of Old Orchard Beach, near Saco, in Maine. It is met with now infrequently in New England; several specimens, however, may be seen in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston.
Oaks, chesnes, of which several of the larger species may have been seen: as, the white oak, Quercus alba; black oak, Quercus tinfloria; Scarlet oak, Quercus coccinea; and red oak, Quercus rubra.
Ash-trees, fresnes, probably the white ash, Fraxinus Americana, and not unlikely the black ash, Fraxinus sambucifolia, both valuable as timber.
Beech-trees, hestres, of which there is but a single Species, Fagus ferruginca, the American beech, a handsome tree, of symmetrical growth, and clean, smooth, ash-gray bark: the nut, of triangular shape, is sweet and palatable. The wood is brittle, and used only for a few purposes.
206. Le Beauport. The latitude of Ten-Pound Island, near where the French
barque was anchored in the Harbor of Gloucester, is 42° 36' 5".
207. The reader may be reminded that Cap St. Louis is Brant Point; Cap
Blanc is Cape Cod; and Baye Blanche is Cape Cod Bay.
208. Le Port aux Huistres, Oyster Harbor. The reader will observe, by looking back a few sentences in the narrative, that the French coasters, after leaving Cap St. Louis, that is, Brant Point, had aimed to double Cape Cod, and had directed their course, as they supposed, to accomplish this purpose. Owing, however, to the strength of the wind, or the darkness of the night, or the inattention of their pilot, or all these together, they had passed to the leeward of the point aimed at, and before morning found themselves near a harbor, which they subsequently entered, in Cape Cod Bay. It is plain that this port, which they named Oyster Harbor, was either that of Wellfleet or Barnstable. The former, it will be remembered, Champlain, with De Monts, entered the preceding year, 1605, and named it, or the river that flows into it, St. Suzanne du Cap Blanc.—Vide antea, note 166. It is obvious that Champlain could not have entered this harbor the second time without recognizing it: and, if he had done so, he would not have given to it a name entirely different from that which he had given it the year before. He was too careful an observer to fall into such an extraordinary mistake. We may conclude, therefore, that the port in question was not Wellfleet, but Barnstable. This conclusion is sustained by the conditions mentioned in the text. They entered, on a flood-tide, in twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four feet of water, and found thirty or thirty-six when they had passed into the harbor. It could hardly be expected that any harbor among the shifting sands of Cape Cod would remain precisely the same, as to depth of water, after the lapse of two hundred and fifty years. Nevertheless, the discrepancy is so slight in this case, that it would seem to be accidental, rather than to arise from the solidity or fixedness of the harbor-bed. The channel of Barnstable Harbor, according to the Coast Survey Charts, varies in depth at low tide, for two miles outside of Sandy Neck Point, from seven to ten feet for the first mile, and for the next mile from ten feet to thirty-two on reaching Beach Point, which may be considered the entrance of the bay. On passing the Point, we have thirty-six and a half feet, and for a mile inward the depth varies from twelve to twenty feet. Add a few feet for the rise of the tide on which they entered, and the depth of the water in 1606 could not have been very different from that of to-day. The "low sandy coast" which they saw is well represented by Spring Hill Beach and Sandy Neck; the "land somewhat high," by the range of hills in the rear of Barnstable Harbor. The distance from the mouth of the harbor to Wood End light, the nearest point on Cape Cod, does not vary more than a league, and its direction is about that mentioned by Champlain. The difference in latitude is not greater than usual. It is never sufficiently exact for the identification of any locality. The substantial agreement, in so many particulars with the narrative of the author, renders it quite clear that the Port aux Huistres was Barnstable Harbor. They entered it on the morning of the 1st of October, and appear to have left on the same day. Sandy Neck light, at the entrance of the harbor, is in latitude 41° 43' 19".
209. Nauset Harbor.