was poring over the manuscript narrative of David Ingram, mariner. Ingram
had in 1568-69 taken the widest range of travel that had ever been taken
in the new continent, of which it was still held doubtful by many whether
it was or was not a part of Asia. "Surely," Gilbert said to his
half-brother, Walter Raleigh, a youth of twenty-three, "this knave hath
seen strange things. He hath been set ashore by John Hawkins in the Gulf
of Mexico and there left behind. He hath travelled northward with two of
his companions along Indian trails; he hath even reached Norumbega; he
hath seen that famous city with its houses of crystal and silver."
"Pine logs and hemlock bark, belike," said Raleigh, scornfully.
"Nay," said Gilbert, "he hath carefully written it down. He saw kings
decorated with rubies six inches long; and they were borne on chairs of
silver and crystal, adorned with precious stones. He saw pearls as common
as pebbles, and the natives were laden down by their ornaments of gold and
silver. The city of Bega was three-quarters of a mile long and had many
streets wider than those of London. Some houses had massive pillars of
crystal and silver."
"What assurance can he give?" asked Raleigh.
"He offers on his life to prove it."
"A small offer, mayhap. There be many of these lying mariners whose lives
are as worthless as the stories they relate. But what said he of the
natives?"
"Kindly disposed," was the reply, "so far as he went, but those dwelling
farther north, where he did not go, were said to be cannibals with teeth
like those of dogs, whereby you may know them."
"Travellers' tales," said Raleigh. "_Omne ignotum pro mirifico_."
"He returned," said Gilbert, disregarding the interruption, "in the
_Gargarine_, a French vessel commanded by Captain Champagne."
"Methinks something of the flavor represented by the good captain's name
hath got into your Englishman's brain. Good ale never gives such
fantasies. Doth he perchance speak of elephants?"
"He doth," said Sir Humphrey, hesitatingly. "Perchance he saw them not,
but heard of them only."
"What says he of them?" asked Raleigh.
"He says that he saw in that country both elephants and ounces; and he
says that their trumpets are made of elephants' teeth."
"But the houses," said Raleigh; "tell me of the houses."
"In every house," said Gilbert, reading from the manuscript, "they have
scoops, buckets, and divers vessels, all of massive silver with which they
throw out water and otherwise employ them. The women wear great plates of
gold covering their bodies, and chains of great pearls in the manner of
curvettes; and the men wear manilions or bracelets on each arm and each
leg, some of gold and some of silver."
"Whence come they, these gauds?"
"There are great rivers where one may find pieces of gold as big as the
fist; and there are great rocks of crystal, sufficient to load many ships."
This was all which was said on that day, but never was explorer more
eager than Gilbert. He wrote a "Discourse of a Discoverie for a New
Passage to Cathaia and the East Indies"--published without his knowledge
by George Gascoigne. In 1578 he had from Queen Elizabeth a patent of
exploration, allowing him to take possession of any uncolonized lands in
North America, paying for these a fifth of all gold and silver found. The
next year he sailed with Raleigh for Newfoundland, but one vessel was lost
and the others returned to England. In 1583, he sailed again, taking with
him the narrative of Ingram, which he reprinted. He also took with him a
learned Hungarian from Buda, named Parmenius, who went for the express
purpose of singing the praise of Norumbega in Latin verse, but was drowned
in Sir Humphrey's great flag-ship, the _Delight_. This wreck took
place near Sable Island, and as most of the supplies for the expedition
went down in the flag-ship, the men in the remaining vessels grew so
impatient as to compel a return. There were two vessels, the _Golden
Hind_ of forty tons, and the _Squirrel_ of ten tons, this last
being a mere boat then called a frigate, a small vessel propelled by both
sails and oars, quite unlike the war-ship afterwards called by that name.
On both these vessels the men were so distressed that they gathered on the
bulwarks, pointing to their empty mouths and their ragged clothing. The
officers of the _Golden Hind_ were unwilling to return, but consented
on Sir Humphrey's promise that they should come back in the spring; they
sailed for England on the 31st of August. All wished him to return in the
_Golden Hind_ as a much larger and safer vessel; the _Squirrel_,
besides its smallness, being encumbered on the deck with guns, ammunition,
and nettings, making it unseaworthy. But when he was begged to remove into
the larger vessel, he said, "I will not forsake my little company going
homeward with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." One reason
for this was, the narrator of the voyage says, because of "hard reports
given of him that he was afraid of the sea, albeit this was rather
rashness than advised resolution, to prefer the wind of a vain report to
the weight of his own life."
On the very day of sailing they caught their first glimpse of some large
species of seal or walrus, which is thus described by the old narrator of
the expedition:--
"So vpon Saturday in the afternoone the 31 of August, we changed our
course, and returned backe for England, at which very instant, euen in
winding about, there passed along betweene vs and towards the land which
we now forsooke a very lion to our seeming, in shape, hair and colour, not
swimming after the maner of a beast by moouing of his feete, but rather
sliding vpon the water with his whole body (excepting the legs) in sight,
neither yet in diuing vnder, and againe rising aboue the water, as the
maner is, of Whales, Dolphins, Tunise, Porposes, and all other fish: but
confidently shewing himselfe aboue water without hiding: Notwithstanding,
we presented our selues in open view and gesture to amase him, as all
creatures will be commonly at a sudden gaze and sight of men. Thus he
passed along turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide, with
ougly demonstration of long teeth, and glaring eies, and to bidde vs a
farewell (comming right against the Hinde) he sent forth a horrible voyce,
roaring or bellowing as doeth a lion, which spectacle wee all beheld so
farre as we were able to discerne the same, as men prone to wonder at
euery strange thing, as this doubtlesse was, to see a lion in the Ocean
sea, or fish in shape of a lion. What opinion others had thereof, and
chiefly the Generall himselfe, I forbeare to deliuer: But he tooke it for
Bonum Omen [a good omen], reioycing that he was to warre against such an
enemie, if it were the deuill."
When they came north of the Azores, very violent storms met them; most
"outrageous seas," the narrator says; and they saw little lights upon the
mainyard called then by sailors "Castor and Pollux," and now "St. Elmo's
Fire"; yet they had but one of these at a time, and this is thought a sign
of tempest. On September 9, in the afternoon, "the general," as they
called him, Sir Humphrey, was sitting abaft with a book in his hand, and
cried out more than once to those in the other vessel, "We are as near to
heaven by sea as by land." And that same night about twelve o'clock, the
frigate being ahead of the _Golden Hind_, the lights of the smaller
vessel suddenly disappeared, and they knew that she had sunk in the sea.
The event is well described in a ballad by Longfellow.
The name of Norumbega and the tradition of its glories survived Sir
Humphrey Gilbert. In a French map of 1543, the town appears with castle
and towers. Jean Allfonsce, who visited New England in that year,
describes it as the capital of a great fur country. Students of Indian
tongues defined the word as meaning "the place of a fine city"; while the
learned Grotius seized upon it as being the same as Norberga and so
affording a relic of the visits of the Northmen. As to the locality, it
appeared first on the maps as a large island, then as a smaller one, and
after 1569 no longer as an island, but a part of the mainland, bordering
apparently on the Penobscot River. Whittier in his poem of "Norumbega"
describes a Norman knight as seeking it in vain.
"He turned him back, 'O master dear,
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead.
* * * * *
"'No builded wonder of these lands
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me.'"
So Champlain, in 1604, could find no trace of it, and said that "no such
marvel existed," while Mark Lescarbot, the Parisian advocate, writing in
1609, says, "If this beautiful town ever existed in nature, I would like
to know who pulled it down, for there is nothing here but huts made of
pickets and covered with the barks of trees or skins." Yet it kept its
place on maps till 1640, and even Heylin in his "Cosmography" (1669)
speaks of "Norumbega and its fair city," though he fears that the latter
never existed.
It is a curious fact that the late Mr. Justin Winsor, the eminent
historian, after much inquiry among the present descendants of the Indian
tribes in Maine, could never find any one who could remember to have heard
the name of Norumbega.
XVIII
THE GUARDIANS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE
When in 1611 the Sieur de Champlain went back to France to report his
wonderful explorations in Canada, he was soon followed by a young
Frenchman named Vignan, who had spent a whole winter among the Indians, in
a village where there was no other white man. This was a method often
adopted by the French for getting more knowledge of Indian ways and
commanding their confidence. Vignan had made himself a welcome guest in
the cabins, and had brought away many of their legends, to which he added
some of his own. In particular, he declared that he had penetrated into
the interior until he had come upon a great lake of salt water, far to the
northwest. This was, as it happened, the very thing which the French
government and all Europe had most hoped to find. They had always believed
that sooner or later a short cut would be discovered across the newly
found continent, a passage leading to the Pacific Ocean and far Cathay.
This was the dream of all French explorers, and of Champlain in
particular, and his interest was at once excited by anything that looked
toward the Pacific. Now Vignan had prepared himself with just the needed
information. He said that during his winter with the Indians he had made
the very discovery needed; that he had ascended the river Ottawa, which
led to a body of salt water so large that it seemed like an ocean; that he
had just seen on its shores the wreck of an English ship, from which
eighty men had been taken and slain by the savages, and that they had with
them an English boy whom they were keeping to present to Champlain.
This tale about the English ship was evidently founded on the recent
calamities of Henry Hudson, of which Vignan had heard some garbled
account, and which he used as coloring for his story. The result was that
Champlain was thoroughly interested in the tale, and that Vignan was
cross-examined and tested, and was made at last to certify to the truth
of it before two notaries of Rochelle. Champlain privately consulted the
chancellor de Sillery, the old Marquis de Brissac, and others, who all
assured him that the matter should be followed up; and he resolved to make
it the subject of an exploration without delay. He sailed in one vessel,
and Vignan in another, the latter taking with him an ardent young
Frenchman, Albert de Brissac.
M. de Vignan, talking with the young Brissac on the voyage, told him
wonderful tales of monsters which were, he said, the guardians of the St.
Lawrence River. There was, he said, an island in the bay of Chaleurs, near
the mouth of that river, where a creature dwelt, having the form of a
woman and called by the Indians Gougou. She was very frightful, and so
enormous that the masts of the vessel could not reach her waist. She had
already eaten many savages and constantly continued to do so, putting them
first into a great pocket to await her hunger. Some of those who had
escaped said that this pocket was large enough to hold a whole ship. This
creature habitually made dreadful noises, and several savages who came on
board claimed to have heard them. A man from St. Malo in France, the Sieur
de Prevert, confirmed this story, and said that he had passed so near the
den of this frightful being, that all on board could hear its hissing, and
all hid themselves below, lest it should carry them off. This naturally
made much impression upon the young Sieur de Brissac, and he doubtless
wished many times that he had stayed at home. On the other hand, he
observed that both M. de Vignan and M. de Prevert took the tale very
coolly and that there seemed no reason why he should distrust himself if
they did not. Yet he was very glad when, after passing many islands and
narrow straits, the river broadened and they found themselves fairly in
the St. Lawrence and past the haunted Bay of Chaleurs. They certainly
heard a roaring and a hissing in the distance, but it may have been the
waves on the beach.
But this was not their last glimpse of the supposed guardians of the St.
Lawrence. As the ship proceeded farther up the beautiful river, they saw
one morning a boat come forth from the woods, bearing three men dressed to
look like devils, wrapped in dogs' skins, white and black, their faces
besmeared as black as any coals, with horns on their heads more than a
yard long, and as this boat passed the ship, one of the men made a long
address, not looking towards them. Then they all three fell flat in the
boat, when Indians rowed out to meet them and guided them to a landing.
Then many Indians collected in the woods and began a loud talk which they
could hear on board the ships and which lasted half an hour. Then two of
their leaders came towards the shore, holding their hands upward joined
together, and meanwhile carrying their hats under their upper garments and
showing great reverence. Looking upward they sometimes cried, "Jesus,
Jesus," or "Jesus Maria." Then the captain asked them whether anything ill
had happened, and they said in French, "Nenni est il bon," meaning that it
was not good. Then they said that their god Cudraigny had spoken in
Hochelaga (Montreal) and had sent these three men to show to them that
there was so much snow and ice in the country that he who went there would
die. This made the Frenchmen laugh, saying in reply that their god
Cudraigny was but a fool and a noddy and knew not what he said. "Tell
him," said a Frenchman, "that Christ will defend them from all cold, if
they will believe in him." The Indians then asked the captain if he had
spoken with Jesus. He answered No; but that his priests had, and they had
promised fair weather. Hearing this, they thanked the captain and told the
other Indians in the woods, who all came rushing out, seeming to be very
glad. Giving great shouts, they began to sing and dance as they had done
before. They also began to bring to the ships great stores of fish and of
bread made of millet, casting it into the French boats so thickly that it
seemed to fall from heaven. Then the Frenchmen went on shore, and the
people came clustering about them, bringing children in their arms to be
touched, as if to hallow them. Then the captain in return arranged the
women in order and gave them beads made of tin, and other trifles, and
gave knives to the men. All that night the Indians made great fires and
danced and sang along the shore. But when the Frenchmen had finally
reached the mouth of the Ottawa and had begun to ascend it, under Vignan's
guidance, they had reasons to remember the threats of the god Cudraigny.
Ascending the Ottawa in canoes, past cataracts, boulders, and precipices,
they at last, with great labor, reached the island of Allumette, at a
distance of two hundred and twenty-five miles. Often it was impossible to
carry their canoes past waterfalls, because the forests were so dense, so
that they had to drag the boats by ropes, wading among rocks or climbing
along precipices. Gradually they left behind them their armor, their
provisions, and clothing, keeping only their canoes; they lived on fish
and wild fowl, and were sometimes twenty-four hours without food.
Champlain himself carried three French arquebuses or short guns, three
oars, his cloak, and many smaller articles; and was harassed by dense
clouds of mosquitoes all the time. Vignan, Brissac, and the rest were
almost as heavily loaded. The tribe of Indians whom they at last reached
had chosen the spot as being inaccessible to their enemies; and thought
that the newcomers had fallen from the clouds.
When Champlain inquired after the salt sea promised by Vignan, he learned
to his indignation that the whole tale was false. Vignan had spent a
winter at the very village where they were, but confessed that he had
never gone a league further north. The Indians knew of no such sea, and
craved permission to torture and kill him for his deceptions; they called
him loudly a liar, and even the children took up the cry and jeered at
him. They said, "Do you not see that he meant to cause your death? Give
him to us, and we promise you that he shall not lie any more." Champlain
defended him from their attacks, bore it all philosophically, and the
young Brissac went back to France, having given up hope of reaching the
salt sea, except, as Champlain himself coolly said, "in imagination." The
guardians of the St. Lawrence had at least exerted their spell to the
extent of saying, Thus far and no farther. Vignan never admitted that he
had invented the story of the Gougou, and had bribed the Indians who acted
the part of devils,--and perhaps he did not,--but it is certain that
neither the giantess nor the god Cudraigny has ever again been heard from.
XIX
THE ISLAND OF DEMONS
Those American travellers who linger with delight among the narrow lanes
and picturesque, overhanging roofs of Honfleur, do not know what a strange
tragedy took place on a voyage which began in that quaint old port three
centuries and a half ago. When, in 1536, the Breton sailor Jacques Cartier
returned from his early explorations of the St. Lawrence, which he had
ascended as high as Hochelaga, King Francis I. sent for him at the lofty
old house known as the House of the Salamander, in a narrow street of the
quaint town of Lisieux. It now seems incredible that the most powerful
king in Europe should have dwelt in such a meagre lane, yet the house
still stands there as a witness; although a visitor must now brush away
the rough, ready-made garments and fishermen's overalls which overhang its
door. Over that stairway, nevertheless, the troubadours, Pierre Ronsard
and Clement Marot, used to go up and down, humming their lays or touching
their viols; and through that door De Lorge returned in glory, after
leaping down into the lions' den to rescue his lady's glove. The house
still derives its name from the great carved image of a reptile which
stretches down its outer wall, from garret to cellar, beside the doorway.
In that house the great king deigned to meet the Breton sailor, who had
set up along the St. Lawrence a cross bearing the arms of France with the
inscription _Franciscus Primus, Dei gratia Francorum Rex regnat_; and
had followed up the pious act by kidnapping the king Donnacona, and
carrying him back to France. This savage potentate was himself brought to
Lisieux to see his French fellow-sovereign; and the jovial king, eagerly
convinced, decided to send Cartier forth again, to explore for other
wonders, and perhaps bring back other kingly brethren. Meanwhile, however,
as it was getting to be an affair of royalty, he decided to send also a
gentleman of higher grade than a pilot, and so selected Jean François de
la Roche, Sieur de Roberval, whom he commissioned as lieutenant and
governor of Canada and Hochelaga. Roberval was a gentleman of credit and
renown in Picardy, and was sometimes jocosely called by Francis "the
little king of Vimeu." He was commissioned at Fontainebleau, and proceeded
to superintend the building of ships at St. Malo.
Marguerite Roberval, his fair-haired and black-eyed niece, was to go with
him on the voyage, with other ladies of high birth, and also with the
widowed Madame de Noailles, her _gouvernante_. Roberval himself
remained at St. Malo to superintend the building of the ships, and
Marguerite and her _gouvernante_ would sit for hours in a beautiful
nook by the shipyards, where they could overlook the vessels in rapid
construction, or else watch the wondrous swirl of the tide as it swept in
and out, leaving the harbor bare at low tide, but with eight fathoms of
water when the tide was full. The designer of the ships often came, cap in
hand, to ask or answer questions--one of those frank and manly French
fishermen and pilots, whom the French novelists describe as "_un solide
gaillard_," or such as Victor Hugo paints in his "Les Travailleurs de
la Mer." The son of a notary, Etienne Gosselin was better educated than
most of the young noblemen whom Marguerite knew, and only his passion for
the sea and for nautical construction had kept him a shipbuilder. No
wonder that the young Marguerite, who had led the sheltered life of the
French maiden, was attracted by his manly look, his open face, his merry
blue eyes, and curly hair. There was about her a tinge of romance, which
made her heart an easier thing to reach for such a lover than for one
within her own grade; and as the voyage itself was a world of romance, a
little more or less of the romantic was an easy thing to add. Meanwhile
Madame de Noailles read her breviary and told her beads and took little
naps, wholly ignorant of the drama that was beginning its perilous
unfolding before her. When the Sieur de Roberval returned, the shipbuilder
became a mere shipbuilder again.
Three tall ships sailed from Honfleur on August 22, 1541, and on one of
them, _La Grande Hermine_,--so called to distinguish it from a
smaller boat of that name, which had previously sailed with Cartier,--were
the Sieur de Roberval, his niece, and her _gouvernante_. She also had
with her a Huguenot nurse, who had been with her from a child, and cared
for her devotedly. Roberval naturally took with him, for future needs, the
best shipbuilder of St. Malo, Etienne Gosselin. The voyage was long, and
there is reason to think that the Sieur de Roberval was not a good sailor,
while as to the _gouvernante_, she may have been as helpless as the
seasick chaperon of yachting excursions. Like them, she suffered the most
important events to pass unobserved, and it was not till too late that she
discovered, what more censorious old ladies on board had already seen,
that her young charge lingered too often and too long on the quarter-deck
when Etienne Gosselin was planning ships for the uncle. When she found it
out, she was roused to just indignation; but being, after all, but a
kindly dowager, with a heart softened by much reading of the interminable
tales of Madame de Scudéry, she only remonstrated with Marguerite, wept
over her little romance, and threatened to break the sad news to the Sieur
de Roberval, yet never did so. Other ladies were less considerate; it all
broke suddenly upon the angry uncle; the youth was put in irons, and
threatened with flogging, and forbidden to approach the quarter-deck
again. But love laughs at locksmiths; Gosselin was relieved of his irons
in a day or two because he could not be spared from his work in designing
the forthcoming ship, and as both he and Marguerite were of a tolerably
determined nature, they invoked, through the old nurse, the aid of a
Huguenot minister on board, who had before sailed with Cartier to take
charge of the souls of some Protestant vagabonds on the ship, and who was
now making a second trip for the same reason. That night, after dark, he
joined the lovers in marriage; within twenty-four hours Roberval had heard
of it, and had vowed a vengeance quick and sure.