Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, vol 2 | Page 9

currants, which creep upon the ground.
[51] Being at his wits' end, without hope of ever seeing us again, weak
and feeble, he found himself on the shore of Baye Françoise, thus
named by Sieur de Monts, near Long Island, [52] where his strength
gave out, when one of our shallops out fishing discovered him. Not
being able to shout to them, he made a sign with a pole, on the end of
which he had put his hat, that they should go and get him. This they did
at once, and brought him off. Sieur de Monts had caused a search to be
made not only by his own men, but also by the savages of those parts,
who scoured all the woods, but brought back no intelligence of him.
Believing him to be dead, they all saw him coming back in the shallop
to their great delight. A long time was needed to restore him to his
usual strength.
ENDNOTES:
14. _Vide Commission du Roy au Sieur de Monts, pour l'habitation és
terres de la Cadie, Canada, et autres endroits en la Nouvelle-France_,
Histoire de a Nouvelle-France, par Marc Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, Qvat.
Liv. p. 431. This charter may also be found in English in a _Collection
of Voyages and Travels compiled from the Library of the Earl of
Oxford, by Thomas Osborne_, London, 1745, Vol. II. pp. 796-798; also
in _Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia_, Halifax, 1865, Vol. I. pp.
21-24.
15. The second officer, or pilot, was, according to Lescarbot, Captain
Morel, of Honfleur.
16. This was under the direction of De Monts himself; and Captain
Timothée, of Havre de Grâce, was pilot, or the second officer.
17. Lescarbot writes this name Campseau; Champlain's orthography is
Canceau; the English often write Canso, but more correctly Canseau. It

has been derived from Cansoke, an Indian word, meaning facing the
frowning cliffs.
18. The Cape and Island of Cape Breton appear to have taken their
name from the fisherman of Brittany, who frequented that region as
early as 1504 --_Vide Champlain's Voyages_, Paris 1632, p. 9.
Thévet sailed along the coast in 1556, and is quoted by Laverdière, as
follows: "In this land there is a province called Compestre de Berge,
extending towards the south-east: in the eastern part of the same is the
cape or promontory of Lorraine, called so by us; others have given it
the came of the Cape of the Bretons, since the Bretons, the Bisayans,
and Normans repair thither, and coast along on their way to
Newfoundland to fish for codfish."
An inscription, "tera que soy descuberta per pertonnes," on an Old
Portuguese map of 1520, declares it to be a country discovered by the
Bretons. It is undoubtedly the oldest French name on any part of North
America. On Gastaldo's map in Mattiolo's Italian translation of Ptolemy,
1548, the name of Breton is applied both to Nova Scotia and to the
Island of Cape Breton.
19. Winthrop says that Mr. John Rose, who was cast away on Sable
Island about 1633, "saw about eight hundred cattle, small and great, all
red, and the largest he ever saw: and many foxes, wherof some perfect
black."--_Whinthrop's Hist. New Eng._, Boston, 1853, Vol. I. p. 193.
Champlain doubtless obtained his information in regard to the cattle
left upon Sable Island by the Portuguese from the from the report of
Edward Haies on the voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583:
"Sablon lieth to the seaward of Cape Briton about twenty-five leagues,
whither we were determined to goe vpon intelligence we had of a
Portugal (during our abode in S. Johns) who was himselfe present,
when the Portugals (aboue thirty yeeres past) did put in the same Island
both Neat and Swine to breede, which were since exceedingly
multiplied. This seemed vnto vs very happy tidings, to haue in an
Island lying so neere vnto the maine, which we intended to plant vpon.

Such store of cattell, whereby we might at all times conueniently be
relieued of victuall, and serued of store for breed."--_Edward Haies in
Hakluyt's Voyages_, London, ed. 1810. Vol. III. p. 197.
20. "Loups marins," seals.
21. "The forty poor wretches whom he left on Sable Island found on the
seashore some wrecks of vessels, out of which they built barracks to
shield themselves from the severity of the weather. They were the
remains of Spanish vessels, which had sailed to settle Cape Breton.
From these same ships had come some sheep and cattle, which had
multiplied on Sable Island; and this was for some time a resource for
these poor exiles. Fish was their next food; and, when their clothes
were worn out, they made new ones of seal-skin. At last, after a lapse
of seven years, the king, having heard of their adventure,