Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02

by Samuel de Champlain

160. It will be observed that, after doubling this cape, they sailed two leagues, and then entered Plymouth Harbor, and consequently this cape must have been what is now known as Brant Point.

161. The latitude is 42° 5'.

162. This was plainly our Indian hemp, Asclepias incarnata. "The fibres of the bark are strong, and capable of being wrought into a fine soft thread; but it is very difficult to separate the bark from the stalk. It is said to have been used by the Indians for bow-strings."—Vide Cutler in Memoirs of the American Academy, Vol. I. p. 424. It is the Swamp Milkweed of Gray, and grows in wet grounds. One variety is common in New England. The Pilgrims found at Plymouth "an excellent strong kind of Flaxe and Hempe"—Vide Mourt's Relation, Dexter's ed. p. 62.

163. Port du Cap St. Louis. From the plain, the map in his edition of 1613, drawing of this Harbor left by Champlain, and also that of the edition of 1632, it is plain that the "Port du Cap St. Louis" is Plymouth Harbor, where anchored the "Mayflower" a little more than fifteen years later than this, freighted with the first permanent English colony established in New England, commonly known as the Pilgrims. The Indian name of the harbor, according to Captain John Smith, who visited it in 1614. was Accomack. He gave it, by direction of Prince Charles, the name of Plymouth. More recent investigations point to this harbor as the one visited by Martin Pring in 1603.— Vide Paper by the Rev Benj. F. De Costa, before the New England His. Gen. Society, Nov. 7, 1877, New England His. and Gen. Register, Vol. XXXII. p. 79.

The interview of the French with the natives was brief, but courteous and friendly on both sides. The English visits were interrupted by more or less hostility. "When Pring was about ready to leave, the Indians became hostile and set the woods on fire, and he saw it burn 'for a mile space.'"—De Costa. A skirmish of some seriousness occurred with Smith's party. "After much kindnesse upon a small occasion, wee fought also with fortie or fiftie of those: though some were hurt, and some slaine, yet within an hour after they became friends."—Smith's New England, Boston, ed. 1865, p. 45.

164. Cape Cod Bay.

165. They named it "le Cap Blanc," the White Cape, from its white appearance, while Bartholomew Gosnold, three years before, had named it Cape Cod from the multitude of codfish near its shores. Captain John Smith called it Cape James. All the early navigators who passed along our Atlantic coast seem to have seen the headland of Cape Cod. It is well defined on Juan de la Cosa's map of 1500, although no name is given to it. On Ribero's map of 1529 it is called C. de arenas. On the map of Nic. Vallard de Dieppe of 1543, it is called C. de Croix.

166. Wellfleet Harbor. It may be observed that a little farther back Champlain says that, having sailed along in a southerly direction four or five leagues, they were at a place where there was a "rock on a level with the surface of the water," and that they saw lying north-north-west of them Cap Blanc, that is, Cape Cod; he now says that the "rock" is near a river, which they named St. Suzanne du Cap Blanc, and that from it to Cap St. Louis the distance is ten leagues. Now, as the distance across to Brant Point, or Cap St. Louis, from Wellfleet Harbor, is ten leagues, and as Cap Blanc or Cape Cod is north-northwest of it, it is plain that Wellfleet Harbor or Herring River, which flows into it, was the river which they named St. Suzanne du Cap Blanc, and that the "rock on a level with the water" was one of the several to be found near the entrance of Wellfleet Bay. It may have been the noted Bay Rock or Blue Rock.

167. Port de Mallebarre, Nauset Harbor, in latitude 41° 48'. By comparing Champlain's map of the harbor, it will be seen that important changes have taken place since 1605. The entrance has receded a mile or more towards the south, and this has apparently changed its interior channel, and the whole form of the bay. The name itself has drifted away with the sands, and feebly clings to the extremity of Monomoy Point at the heel of the Cape.

168. Not strictly a cypress, but rather a juniper, the Savin, or red cedar, Juniparus Virginiana, a tree of exclusively American origin; and consequently it could not be truly characterized by any name then known to Champlain.