Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01

by Samuel de Champlain

CHAPTER VI.

ERECTION OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.—THE SCURVY AND THE STARVING SAVAGES.— DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN, AND THE BATTLE AT TICONDEROGA.—CRUELTIES INFLICTED ON PRISONERS OF WAR, AND THE FESTIVAL AFTER VICTORY.— CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS INTERVIEW WITH HENRY IV.—VOYAGE TO NEW FRANCE AND PLANS OF DISCOVERY.—BATTLE WITH THE IROQUOIS NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE RICHELIEU.—REPAIR OF BUILDINGS AT QUEBEC.—NEWS OF THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY IV.—CHAMPLAIN'S RETURN TO FRANCE AND HIS CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE.—VOYAGE TO QUEBEC IN 1611.

On the 18th of September, 1608, Pont Gravé, having obtained his cargo of furs and peltry, sailed for France.

The autumn was fully occupied by Champlain and his little band of colonists in completing the buildings and in making such other provisions as were needed against the rigors of the approaching winter. From the forest trees beams were hewed into shape with the axe, boards and plank were cut from the green wood with the saw, walls were reared from the rough stones gathered at the base of the cliff, and plots of land were cleared near the settlement, where wheat and rye were sown and grapevines planted, which successfully tested the good qualities of the soil and climate.

Three lodging-houses were erected on the northwest angle formed by the junction of the present streets St. Peter and Sous le Fort, near or on the site of the Church of Notre Dame. Adjoining, was a store-house. The whole was, surrounded by a moat fifteen feet wide and six feet deep, thus giving the settlement the character of a fort; a wise precaution against a sudden attack of the treacherous savages. [58]

At length the sunny days of autumn were gone, and the winter, with its fierce winds and its penetrating frosts and deep banks of snow, was upon them. Little occupation could be furnished for the twenty-eight men that composed the colony. Their idleness soon brought a despondency that hung like a pall upon their spirits. In February, disease made its approach. It had not been expected. Every defence within their knowledge had been provided against it. Their houses were closely sealed and warm; their clothing was abundant; their food nutritious and plenty. But a diet too exclusively of salt meat had, notwithstanding, in the opinion of Champlain, and we may add the want, probably, of exercise and the presence of bad air, induced the mal de la terre or scurvy, and it made fearful havoc with his men. Twenty, five out of each seven of their whole number, had been carried to their graves before the middle of April, and half of the remaining eight had been attacked by the loathsome scourge.

While the mind of Champlain was oppressed by the suffering and death that were at all times present in their abode, his sympathies were still further taxed by the condition of the savages, who gathered in great numbers about the settlement, in the most abject misery and in the last stages of starvation. As Champlain could only furnish them, from his limited stores, temporary and partial relief, it was the more painful to see them slowly dragging their feeble frames about in the snow, gathering up and devouring with avidity discarded meat in which the process of decomposition was far advanced, and which was already too potent with the stench of decay to be approached by his men.

Beyond the ravages of disease [59] and the starving Indians, Champlain adds nothing more to complete the gloomy picture of his first winter in Quebec. The gales of wind that swept round the wall of precipice that protected them in the rear, the drifts of snow that were piled up in fresh instalments with every storm about their dwelling, the biting frost, more piercing and benumbing than they had ever experienced before, the unceasing groans of the sick within, the semi-weekly procession bearing one after another of their diminishing numbers to the grave, the mystery that hung over the disease, and the impotency of all remedies, we know were prominent features in the picture. But the imagination seeks in vain for more than a single circumstance that could throw upon it a beam of modifying and softening light, and that was the presence of the brave Champlain, who bore all without a murmur, and, we may be sure, without a throb of unmanly fear or a sensation of cowardly discontent.

But the winter, as all winters do, at length melted reluctantly away, and the spring came with its verdure, and its new life. The spirits of the little remnant of a colony began to revive. Eight of the twenty-eight with which the winter began were still surviving. Four had escaped attack, and four were rejoicing convalescents.

On the 5th of June, news came that Pont Gravé had arrived from France, and was then at Tadoussac, whither Champlain immediately repaired to confer with him, and particularly to make arrangements at the earliest possible moment for an exploring expedition into the interior, an undertaking which De Monts had enjoined upon him, and which was not only agreeable to his own wishes, but was a kind of enterprise which had been a passion with him from his youth.