After one ineffectual attempt, the party left Port Royal on the 5th of September, 1606. On the seventh they anchored in the St. Croix, on the eighth they visited, in a small boat, the island where De Monts had spent the dreary winter of 1604-5. They found some traces of the gardens, still bearing some of the pot herbs planted so long before, and some grain self-sown, and in excellent condition. Returning to their vessel they coasted to the westward, to proceed directly to the extreme limit of the discoveries of the preceding year, so to lose no time on the twelfth they turned towards Chouacoet, and reached the river on the twenty-first. Lescarbot gives some details of this nine days voyage.

They were four days in reaching Penobscot Bay, having stopped en route to repair their little craft. Passing through the Fox Islands they reached the mouth of the Kennebec, where they were again in peril on account of the "great "currents which are peculiar to the place." It would appear also, from Lescarbot, that the party landed at Cape Elizabeth before reaching Saco, but upon this point there is some doubt. Champlain adds that the Indians at Chouacoet had finished their harvest, and that he did not fail to taste the grapes on the island of Bacchus, which were ripe and quite good. From this point they made Cape Ann, and so to the southward; but the voyage was without fruit. In a conflict with the natives they lost several of their company. On the 28th of October they set sail from Malabarre for the Isle Haute. On the thirty-first, between Mount Desert and the Mouth of the Machias, they lost their rudder and were in imminent peril. With much ingenuity they succeeded in reaching a harbor, but not until the 14th of November, after many dangers and disasters did they reach Port Royal. Of their enthusiastic reception, the feasting and masquerading which followed, the long winter enlivened by Lescarbot's wit, and the bonhommie of their versatile and vivacious nation, our

limits will not permit us to give any description. For the purpose of this hasty investigation we have nothing to do with the future of the colony.

I fancy that few who have read the simple narrative in Champlain's words, or who have followed this very imperfect abridgement of it, can fail to see its important bearing on the history of our State. So far as I know, the three voyages are the first thoroughly intelligible contribution to the cartography of Maine.

That the work was done by a gentleman of such energy, patience, and accuracy, must be to us a matter of constant satisfaction. His monument is here, as well as on the banks of the majestic St. Lawrence, and his memory will be preserved in the great landmarks on our coast which bear the names he gave them two hundred and seventy years ago, as well as in the great lake he discovered, and which bears his name, or the quaint town which he founded on the heights of Quebec, and which to this day has the sight and sound and savor of that older time, a gift, as it were, of one of its family jewels from the Old France to the New.

ARTICLE XVI.

NOW AND THEN.

BY THE LATE

WILLIAM ALLEN, Esq.,

OF NORRIDGEWOCK.

READ AT THE WINTER SESSION, AUGUSTA, JAN., 1868.

NOW AND THEN.

ALTHOUGH I make no pretention to the honor of being that "Oldest Inhabitant" who is presumed to know everything about the weather, and when the coldest days happened, or the deepest snows or greatest floods; still, in compliance with the request of a worthy member of the Maine Historical Society, I will attempt to describe some of the events I have witnessed, and changes which have occurred within eighty years past, or within the period of my recollection, not particularly described in official documents and statistical accounts, which from time to time have been published, and made accessible to every

one.

It may be seen by the census that the population of Maine increased more than tenfold from 1784 to 1860, being 56,321 at the former period, and 583,026 at the latter. I will state, in general terms, that in my opinion the comforts and conveniences of life, and condition of the country, have increased in the same rate in many things not included in official reports.

Money, as a circulating medium, has increased immensely within my recollection. The improved value of our household furniture and accommodations, of farming tools and implements of husbandry, of food and clothing and other things not taxable, can readily be perceived by all who are now living who were of age to take notice of