wilderness.

In the midst of peace and progress a heavy loss was now to befall
Quebec. Champlain, beyond sixty-eight years of age, lay prostrate in
the fort. His last illness had come upon him, and on Christmas Day,
1635, the father of New France passed away. Soldiers, priests, and
settlers sorrowfully followed his remains to the little church on the
cliff, Notre Dame de la Recouvrance, which Champlain himself had
founded in honour of the restitution of the city, and where he had
renewed so often his faith and hope and courage.

A great spirit had crossed the bourne. The whole history of Canada has
no fairer pages than those which deal with the deeds of the founder of
Quebec. His was a character great and unselfish, often mistaken, but
always high-minded and just; not free from the credulity that
characterised his generation, but with a spirit of romantic endurance
which leaves the New World still his debtor; with a love of high
emprise unsullied by lust of gain or by cruelty or vain-glory. Like
Moses, he went forth into a land of promise; and, like Moses, the
place of his sepulchre is not known. It is, however, recorded that his
remains were placed "_dans un sepulcre particulier_." During the
administration of Montmagny a small chapel adjoining Notre Dame de la
Recouvrance came to be known as "Champlain's Chapel," and for a long
time this was believed to mark the founder's tomb. But in 1856 an
excavation at the foot of Breakneck Stairs revealed a curious vault
containing human bones; and later investigation has led to the belief
that the last resting-place of Champlain was a rocky niche part way
down Mountain Hill, in full view of the strand upon which his early
Habitation was built.

CHAPTER III

THE HEROIC AGE OF NEW FRANCE

The Indians with whom the French explorers first came in contact were
of the Algonquin family. Under different tribal names this race spread
itself over the Atlantic seaboard from Carolina to Hudson's Bay, and
farther west than the Great Lakes. In the comparatively small area now
forming northern New York lived the Iroquois, or Five Nation Indians,
who, like the Helvetii of old, out-stripped all the other tribes in
valour, and at the time of the arrival of the Europeans were engaged
in reducing their Algonquin foes to subjection. The Hurons, who figure
so prominently in early Canadian annals, were of Iroquois stock; but
owing to their situation in the Georgian Bay peninsula, and the