by-laws of which were definite, and were fixed by Champlain himself. The
Indians of the vicinity who were friendly towards the French colony were
in need of food, so that each day loaves of bread were distributed
amongst them. Their _sagamo_, named Membertou, was admitted as a guest
to the table of Poutrincourt. This famous Souriquois, who was very old
at that time--probably a hundred years, though he had not a single white
hair--pretended to have known Jacques Cartier at the time of his first
voyage, and claimed that in 1534 he was married, and the father of a
young family.

Lescarbot, who was an able man and a good historian, records the
particulars above related, besides many other interesting facts
concerning Port Royal which appear to have escaped Champlain's
observation. Lescarbot was an active spirit in the life of the first
French colony in Acadia. He encouraged his companions to cultivate their
land, and he worked himself in the gardens, sowing wheat, oats, beans,
pease, and herbs, which he tended with care. He was also liked by the
Indians, and he would have rejoiced to see them converted to
Christianity. Lescarbot was a poet and a preacher, and had also a good
knowledge of the arts and of medicine. Charlevoix says: "He daily
invented something new for the public good. And there was never a
stronger proof of what a new settlement might derive from a mind
cultivated by study, and induced by patriotism to use its knowledge and
reflections. We are indebted to this advocate for the best memoirs of
what passed before his eyes, and for a history of French Florida. We
then behold an exact and judicious writer, a man with views of his own,
and who would have been as capable of founding a colony as of writing
its history."

With the departure of Lescarbot and Champlain the best page of the