with forty
men, and two days later Champlain set sail in a fifteen-ton barque with
De Monts and several others, to explore the coast and discover if
possible a better place for the colony. They went as far south as Nauset
Harbor, and Champlain made charts and kept a journal quaintly
illustrated with figures drawn and painted; but De Monts found no place
that suited him. Then he bethought himself of the deep sheltered harbor
of Port Royal, and they removed everything to that new site, on the
north side of the basin below the mouth of a little river which they
called the Equille. Even parts of the buildings were taken across the
Bay of Fundy. But a ship from France brought news to De Monts that
enemies at court were working against his Company, and leaving Pontgrave
in command he and Poutrincourt returned home, to see what they could do
to further the interests of the colony in Paris. Among other things
Champlain, who had tried without success to make a garden in the sandy
soil of the island, begged them to provide the settlers with seeds,
roots, cuttings and implements by which they might raise grain and
vegetables and other provisions for themselves. This would improve the
health and also reduce the expenses of the colony, and the land about
the new site was well adapted for cultivation.

Poutrincourt, foregathering with his friend Lescarbot soon after the
lawyer had lost nearly all he possessed in a suit, recounted to him the
woes of the colony, and found with pleasure that in spite of the doleful
history of the last two years Lescarbot was eager to seek a new career
in New France.

Helene came running in one morning in the early spring of 1606, to find
old Jacqueline on the steps of the root-cellar with a heap of sprouting
potatoes beside her. Lescarbot was packing away in a panier such as she
gave him, while under the whitening pear-tree a donkey stood, sleepily
shaking his ears as he waited for orders.

"Oh, what are you doing, Uncle Marc?" she cried.

"Making ready to go to the land beyond the sunset, Mademoiselle la
Princesse du Jardin de Paradis," he said smiling. "Sit down while the
good mother gets the packets of seeds she promised me, and I will tell
you a story."

All curiosity and wonder, the little maid settled herself on the ancient
worm-eaten bench, and Lescarbot began.

"It happened one day that men came and told the King that a great realm
lay beyond the seas, where only wild men and animals liv