St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-07-07

the wilderness.
What had been Champlain's prepara-
ton for his new work? A man who was
to be tor one-third of a century the in
splrer and dominating spirit in French
exploration and colonization in America
certainly had need of training. Champ
laln's thirty-six years had been we'll
spent. Though he had been a soldier
and a sailor by profession and knew of
the hardships of war, the vices of camps,
the dissoluteness of seamen, he was as
soft hearted as child, full of kindness
and mercy, man of the most temperate
habits, holding his body in subsection,
and never yielding his personal standard
OF honor. Consider that in DAYS when
sailors in certain lines of trade could not
make half dozen voyages without be-
coming hopeless physical wrecks, this
man repeatedly crossed the Atlantic be-
tween Old and New France, and travers-
ed hundreds of miles of unbroken forest
and shared for weeks and months at
stretch the fare of savages which to US
would be intolerable for single day and
did this year after year, until he was
nearly three score and ten years old,
without giving us in his journals the
slightest indication that he did not enjoy
perfect health. | do not recall that |
have ever read one word of complaint in
his writings. He was man whose life
had been that of soldier from his youth
up in an age of unbridled license, and yet
his conduct in the distant forests among
people who knew of no conventional
restraint to their impulses was such that
Parkman tells us the old men of the
Huron tribes remembered and marvelled
at his purity of life generation after he
had left them.
Such constitution as his, preserved
as he preserved it, holding it to be the
temple of God as he did, could well with
stand the buffetings of war, the wilder
ness, and the sea for many years. Pesti-
lence, which marked sometimes the
strongest for its victims, and laid men
low in a single night, passed him by.
Remember the first winter he spent at
Quebec, the winter just preceding his
discovery of the lake. Cooped up in
little wooden fort of his own building
with % men, he barely managed to
nurse through eight of the number until
the return of spring brought the ships
again from France. Yet such was his
spirit that within two weeks of their
return be was on his way toward YER
mont. His constitution and his courage
were alike invincible.
Added to his marvellous physique were
other elements making for success. AS a
Young man he studied cartography, to
SONG extent. and he was always using
his pencil, crudely, but intelligently
enough to tell the story which he want
ed to tell. Valuable also had been his
experience in the army as quartermaster,
and his service in the royal fleet Oft Brit
tany, under De Chastes. OF great i'm
portance in forming views about the
government and carrying on of new
colonies had been his two years trip to
the West Indies, in which he studied at
first hand'the actual operation OF the
policies of Spain, then the leading
European state in the exploitation of
America. 1t is to be noted that Cham
plain never repeated in Canada the
mistakes of the Spanish in South Amer.
ca, in dealing with the natives. It's OF
no little significance that the French poll
cy OF dealing with Indians, established
by Champlain, but imperfectly carried
out by his successors, was the most sue
cessful policy practiced by any European
state in its American settlements. AS
result of this policy, based on humane
treatment, fearless honesty, and spirit
of fraternity, the French were enabled
to encircle the English settlements from
the mouth of the st. Lawrence to the
mouth of the Mississippi, while the
struggling English settlers along the
Atlantic coast could not venture 20
miles from tide water with impunity.
On his West Indian trip Champlain land
ed at Vera Cruz, went inland to the city
of Mexico, on his return visited Panama,
and there, more than three centuries
ago, his fertile brain conceived an idea
which Americans today are just carrying
into execution, the idea Of ship canal
across the isthmus, by which, he says,
1.-The voyage to the South Sea should be
shortened by more than 1900 leagues"
In addition to this voyage, so helpful
in preparing him for his greater work
in Canada, Champlain explored the
coast of New England and thereby
placed all New Englanders under lasting
obligations to him. In 1904 he began
a detailed examination of the coast OF
Nova Scotia and New England, which he
continued for three years, exploring
rivers, bays, and inlets, probably more
than a thousand miles of the sinuous
coast line from the little colony which
he helped plant for De Monts in Nova
Scotia to Vineyard Sound. He was the
kings geographer and he left full and
accurate reports of his operations, so
that with little difficulty his course may
be traced along the coast OF Maine, up
the Penobscot River to the site OF
Bangor, past Mt. Desert Island, which
he named, the mouths of the Kennebec
and .Saco, Old Orchard Beach, Cape
Ann, Massachusetts, Bay, Boston Har-
Dor, and Plymouth Harbor, where he
arrived Is years before the Maytiower
brought its cargo, so invaluable to
American genealogists. On this explor,,
ing expedition Champlain examined and
made drawings of Indian fortihcatlons,
studied the habits and life of the natives,
making comparisons with those OF the
Indians he had seen elsewhere, and des-
cribed their occupations, their houses,
crops, etc. In short he left the best as
we'll as the first description OF, the life
and manners of Indians of New Eng
land before they had become contaminat-
ed by Europeans. And he did this at
time when there was not settlement OF,
the Atlantic coast between his own ana
Florida. Such was the mans prepara-