118. Casco Bay, which stretches from Cape Small Point to Cape Elizabeth. It has within it a hundred and thirty-six islands. They anchored and passed the night somewhere within the limits of this bay, but did not attempt its exploration.
119. These were the White Mountains in New Hampshire, towering above the sea 6,225 feet. They are about sixty miles distant from Casco Bay, and were observed by all the early voyagers as they sailed along the coast of Maine. They are referred to on Ribero's Map of 1529 by the Spanish word montañas, and were evidently seen by Estevan Gomez in 1525, whose discoveries are delineated by this map. They will also be found on the Mappe-Monde of about the middle of the sixteenth century, and on Sebastian Cabot's map, 1544, both included in the "Monuments de la Géographie" of Jomard, and they are also indicated on numerous other early maps.
120. This conjecture is not sustained by any evidence beyond the similarity of the names. There are numerous idle opinions as to the kind of plant which was so efficacious a remedy for the scurvy, but they are utterly without foundation. There does not appear to be any means of determining what the healing plant was.
121. The four leagues of the previous day added to the eight of this bring them from the Kennebec to Saco Bay.
122. The small island "proche de la grande terre" was Stratton Island: they anchored on the northern side and nearly east of Bluff Island, which is a quarter of a mile distant. The Indians came down to welcome them from the promontory long known as Black Point, now called Prout's Neck. Compare Champlain's local map and the United States Coast Survey Charts.
123. Champlain's narrative, together with his sketch or drawing, illustrating the mouth of the Saco and its environs, compared with the United States Coast Survey Charts, renders it certain that this was Richmond Island. Lescarbot describes it as a 'great island, about half a league in compass, at the entrance of the bay of the said place of Choüacoet It is about a mile long, and eight hundred yards in its greatest width.—Coast Pilot. It received its present name at a very early period. It was granted under the title of "a small island, called Richmond," by the Council for New England to Walter Bagnall, Dec. 2, 1631.—Vide Calendar of Eng. State Papers, Col. 1574-1660, p. 137. Concerning the death of Bagnall on this island a short time before the above grant was made, vide Winthrop's Hist. New Eng., ed. 1853, Vol. I. pp. 75, 118.
124. Lescarbot calls him Olmechin.—Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par M. Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, p. 558.
125. They had hoped that the wife of Panounias, their Indian guide, who was said to have been born among the Almouchiquois, would be able to interpret their language, but in this they appear to have been disappointed.—Vide antea, p. 55.
126. From the Indian word, M'-foo-ah-koo-et, or, as the French pronounced it, Choüacoet, which had been the name, applied by the aborigines to this locality we know not how long, is derived the name Saco, now given to the river and city in the same vicinity. The orthography given to the original word is various, as Sawocotuck, Sowocatuck, Sawakquatook, Sockhigones, and Choüacost. The variations in this, as in other Indian words, may have arisen from a misapprehension of the sound given by the aborigines, or from ignorance, on the part of writers, of the proper method of representing sounds, joined to an utter indifference to a matter which seemed to them of trifling importance.
127. Febues du Brésil. This is the well-known trailing or bush-bean of New England, Phaseolus vulgaris, called the "Brazilian bean" because it resembled a bean known in France at that time under that name. It is sometimes called the kidney-bean. It is indigenous to America.