LITMIR.BIZ

      SHIPS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

      The knowledge thus gained pointed with unerring finger to the St. Lawrence as the open door through which French discoverers should pass into the spacious interior of our broad continent, though never, in their wildest flights of fancy, could they have conceived what lay beyond this door. So accident rather than choice led them on through the colder region of the north. And while the Spaniards had missed the Mississippi, a more fortunate chance led Frenchmen to find it by a very different, though no less certain, route. To them be the honor of the achievement!

      Just as the march of Spanish civilization is traced in the names given by explorers of that nation, so, in like manner, those conferred by Frenchmen shall direct us in the lines by which they journeyed onward toward the setting sun.

Although Jacques Cartier1 ascended the St. Lawrence so early as 1534-35, it was not till Champlain founded Quebec (1608), that the work of settling a French colony in Canada began in earnest. But even here, at Quebec, three hundred miles from the ocean, the great river poured its undiminished floods out of the wilderness beyond, and it bore its greatness on its face.

      Astonished to find themselves only on the threshold, as it were, of the continent, the adventurous pioneers caught their first glimpses of its undoubted grandeur. That they were dazzled by it, is something we may easily conceive.

Whence came this silent river, this daily riddle for men to guess, and whither would it lead them? In what far country would its tiny tributary rills be found? Did they lie hid among the feet of far-off mountains, over-peering all the land like hoary giants, or gush forth from the bosom of some vast plain? Was it indeed the road to India?2

      To such questions as these the future must make answer. All believed it would lead to India. But Champlain and those who, like him, looked at things broadly and deeply, were convinced that whoever should hold that river throughout its course would be masters of the continent it undoubtedly drained. And as Frenchmen ever loyal to their king and country, whose glory they would see increased, they purposed making here, in the wilderness, a New France which some day, perhaps, should rival, if not eclipse, the old.

      To this work the French brought one qualification peculiarly their own. It was this. Of the three nations who have contended for control in our country, none have so readily adapted themselves to the original people as the French have. None have so thoroughly respected their feelings and prejudices. And none have so easily won their confidence, or so fully commanded their services.