Atlantic seaboard. Ten years later
Norumbega has become a region which takes in the whole coast from Cape
Breton to Florida. At intervals throughout the sixteenth century
fables were told in Europe of its extraordinary wealth, and it was not
till the time of Champlain that this myth was exposed. Champlain
himself identifies 'the great river of Norumbega' with the Penobscot.

[3] Traders from the extreme south of France, whose chief port was St
Jean de Luz. Though living on the confines of France and Spain, the
Basques were of different racial origin from both Spaniards and French.
While subject politically to France, their remoteness from the main
ports of Normandy and Brittany kept them out of touch with the mariners
of St Malo and Havre, save as collision arose between them in the St
Lawrence. Among the Basques there were always interlopers, even when
St Jean de Luz had been given a share in the monopoly. They are
sometimes called Spaniards, from their close neighbourhood to the
Pyrenees.

{59}

CHAPTER III

CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC

From the Island of Orleans to Quebec the distance is a league. I
arrived there on the third of July, when I searched for a place
suitable for our settlement, but I could find none more convenient or
better than the point of Quebec, so called by the savages, which was
covered with nut-trees. I at once employed a portion of our workmen in
cutting them down, that we might construct our habitation there: one I
set to sawing boards, another to making a cellar and digging ditches,
another I sent to Tadoussac with the barque to get supplies. The first
thing we made was the storehouse for keeping under cover our supplies,
which was promptly accomplished through the zeal of all, and my
attention to the work.

Thus opens Champlain's account of the place with which his name is
linked imperishably. He was the founder of Quebec and its preserver.
During his lifetime the results seemed pitifully small, but the task
once undertaken was never abandoned. By steadfastness he prevailed,
and at his death had created a {60} colony which became the New France
of Talon and Frontenac, of La Salle and D'Iberville, of Brebeuf and
Laval. If Venice from amid her lagoons could exclaim, _Esto perpetua_,
Quebec, firm based upon her cliff, can say to the rest of Canada,
_Attendite ad petram undo excisi estis_--'Look unto the rock whence ye
are hewn.'

Champlain's Quebec was very poor in everyth