To crown the gloom and wretchedness of their situation, the colony was
visited with disease of a virulent and fatal character. As the malady was
beyond the knowledge, so it baffled the skill of the surgeons. They called
it _mal de la terre_. Of the seventy-nine persons, composing the whole
number of the colony, thirty-five died, and twenty others were brought to
the verge of the grave. In May, having been liberated from the baleful
influence of their winter prison and revived by the genial warmth of the
vernal sun and by the fresh meats obtained from the savages, the disease
abated, and the survivors gradually regained their strength.

Disheartened by the bitter experiences of the winter, the governor, having
fully determined to abandon his present establishment, ordered two boats to
be constructed, one of fifteen and the other of seven tons, in which to
transport his colony to Gaspe, in case he received no supplies from France,
with the hope of obtaining a passage home in some of the fishing vessels on
that coast. But from this disagreeable alternative he was happily relieved.
On the 15th of June, 1605, Pont Grave arrived, to the great joy of the
little colony, with all needed supplies. The purpose of returning to France
was at once abandoned, and, as no time was to be lost, on the 18th of the
same month, De Monts, Champlain, several gentlemen, twenty sailors, two
Indians, Panounias and his wife, set sail for the purpose of discovering a
more eligible site for his colony somewhere on the shores of the present
New England. Passing slowly along the coast, with which Champlain was
already familiar, and consequently without extensive explorations, they at
length reached the waters of the Kennebec, [39] where the survey of the
previous year had terminated and that of the present was about to begin.

On the 5th of July, they entered the Kennebec, and, bearing to the right,
passed through Back River, [40] grazing their barque on the rocks in the
narrow channel, and then sweeping down round the southern point of