Over the Border: Acadia | Page 7

above Sixth, where the two little wooden houses still stand; one, when we last saw it, being painted blue.
What a picturesque company of adventurers were those French noblemen, who, turning their backs upon the luxuries and fascinations of court life, sailed away to this wild and distant land, where, in the pursuit of gain, fame, or merely adventure, they were to suffer absolute privation and hardship; consorting with savages in place of the plumed and pampered denizens of palaces.
After a probably tempestuous voyage across the bleak Atlantic, and a merciless buffeting from Fundy in the spring of 1604, the prospective Governor of the great territory known as Acadia was sailing along this coast, which presents such a forbidding aspect from the Bay, making his first haven May 16. At that time, we can readily imagine, in this northern region the weather would not be very balmy. Even now the wild rocky shore stretches along drearily--though with certain stern picturesqueness--as far as eye can reach, and then must have been even less attractive, as it showed no sign of habitation.
Champlain was somewhat familiar with these shores from former voyages, and so had been chosen as pilot; but De Poutrincourt and Pontgrav��, other associates of Pierre du Guast, the Sieur de Monts, doubtless looked askance at each other, or indulged in the expressive French shrug as the cheerless panorama parsed before them. On that 16th of May, at the harbor where the little town of Liverpool is now situated, De Monts found another Frenchman engaged in hunting and fishing, ignoring, or regardless of, the rights of any one else; and without ado this interloper (so considered by De Monts) was nabbed; the only consolation he received being the honor of transmitting his name, Rossignol, to the harbor,--a name since transferred to a lake in the vicinity.
After a sojourn of two weeks at another point (St. Mary's Bay), the explorers proceeded northward; and at last a particularly inviting harbor presented itself, causing the mental vision of the new Governor and his company to assume more hopeful aspect, as they turned their course thither and pronounced it "Port Royal"!

PORT ROYAL
Here they managed to exist through the winter with as much comfort as circumstances would admit of; but with the return of summer were on the wing again, in search of more salubrious climate and more southerly locality for the establishment of a colony, sailing along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts as far as Cape Cod.
Attempts were made to establish settlements, but the natives proved unfriendly; the foreigners had not a sufficient force to subdue them; and, as De Monts was obliged to return to France, De Poutrincourt and his companions established themselves again at Port Royal. Here, to while away the long winter, the gay adventurers established a burlesque court, which they christened "L'Ordre de Bon Temps"; and of the merry realm each of the fifteen principal persons of the colony became supreme ruler in turn. As the Grand Master's sway lasted but a day, each one, as he assumed that august position, prided himself on doing his utmost to eclipse his predecessor in lavish provision for feasting. Forests were scoured for game; fish were brought from the tempest-tossed waters of the Bay, or speared through the ice of L'��quille; so the table fairly groaned with the luxuries of these winter revelers in the wilds of Acadia. With ludicrous caricature of court ceremonial, the rulers of the feast marched to the table, where their invited guests, the Indian chiefs, sat with them around the board; the squaws and children squatting on the floor, watching for bits which the lively company now and then tossed to them. "They say" that an aged sachem, when dying, asked if he should have pies in heaven as good as those which he had eaten at Poutrincourt's table!
To the Indians, the greatest delicacy of all on the table was bread. This, to them a dainty viand, they were always ready to consume with gusto; but were invariably averse to grinding the corn, although promised half of the meal as recompense for their labor. The grinding was performed with a hand-mill, and consequently so laborious and tedious that the savages would rather suffer hunger than submit to such drudgery, which they also seemed to think degrading to the free sons of the forest.
Proverbially fickle are princes; and of this De Monts was convinced on his return to France, for during his absence he had lost favor with his sovereign, Henry IV., who revoked his commission; still he succeeded, after many difficulties, in procuring supplies for his colony, and arrived just in time to prevent his people from leaving Port Royal discouraged and disheartened. One member of the little community of Frenchmen was Lescarbot, a lawyer, who was talented, poetical,