A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic

T >> Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic




When they came north of the Azores, very violent storms met them; most
"outrageous seas," the narrator says; and they saw little lights upon the
mainyard called then by sailors "Castor and Pollux," and now "St. Elmo's
Fire"; yet they had but one of these at a time, and this is thought a sign
of tempest. On September 9, in the afternoon, "the general," as they
called him, Sir Humphrey, was sitting abaft with a book in his hand, and
cried out more than once to those in the other vessel, "We are as near to
heaven by sea as by land." And that same night about twelve o'clock, the
frigate being ahead of the _Golden Hind_, the lights of the smaller
vessel suddenly disappeared, and they knew that she had sunk in the sea.
The event is well described in a ballad by Longfellow.

The name of Norumbega and the tradition of its glories survived Sir
Humphrey Gilbert. In a French map of 1543, the town appears with castle
and towers. Jean Allfonsce, who visited New England in that year,
describes it as the capital of a great fur country. Students of Indian
tongues defined the word as meaning "the place of a fine city"; while the
learned Grotius seized upon it as being the same as Norberga and so
affording a relic of the visits of the Northmen. As to the locality, it
appeared first on the maps as a large island, then as a smaller one, and
after 1569 no longer as an island, but a part of the mainland, bordering
apparently on the Penobscot River. Whittier in his poem of "Norumbega"
describes a Norman knight as seeking it in vain.

"He turned him back, 'O master dear,
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead.

* * * * *

"'No builded wonder of these lands
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me.'"

So Champlain, in 1604, could find no trace of it, and said that "no such
marvel existed," while Mark Lescarbot, the Parisian advocate, writing in
1609, says, "If this beautiful town ever existed in nature, I would like
to know who pulled it down, for there is nothing here but huts made of
pickets and covered with the barks of trees or skins." Yet it kept its
place on maps till 1640, and even Heylin in his "Cosmography" (1669)
speaks of "Norumbega and its fair city," though he fears that the latter
never existed.

It is a curious fact that the late Mr. Justin Winsor, the eminent
historian, after much inquiry among the present descendants of the Indian
tribes in Maine, could never find any one who could remember to have heard
the name of Norumbega.



XVIII

THE GUARDIANS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE


When in 1611 the Sieur de Champlain went back to France to report his
wonderful explorations in Canada, he was soon followed by a young
Frenchman named Vignan, who had spent a whole winter among the Indians, in
a village where there was no other white man. This was a method often
adopted by the French for getting more knowledge of Indian ways and
commanding their confidence. Vignan had made himself a welcome guest in
the cabins, and had brought away many of their legends, to which he added
some of his own. In particular, he declared that he had penetrated into
the interior until he had come upon a great lake of salt water, far to the
northwest. This was, as it happened, the very thing which the French
government and all Europe had most hoped to find. They had always believed
that sooner or later a short cut would be discovered across the newly
found continent, a passage leading to the Pacific Ocean and far Cathay.
This was the dream of all French explorers, and of Champlain in
particular, and his interest was at once excited by anything that looked
toward the Pacific. Now Vignan had prepared himself with just the needed
information. He said that during his winter with the Indians he had made
the very discovery needed; that he had ascended the river Ottawa, which
led to a body of salt water so large that it seemed like an ocean; that he
had just seen on its shores the wreck of an English ship, from which
eighty men had been taken and slain by the savages, and that they had with
them an English boy whom they were keeping to present to Champlain.

This tale about the English ship was evidently founded on the recent
calamities of Henry Hudson, of which Vignan had heard some garbled
account, and which he used as coloring for his story. The result was that
Champlain was thoroughly interested in the tale, and that Vignan was
cross-examined and tested, and was made at last to certify to the truth
of it before two notaries of Rochelle. Champlain privately consulted the
chancellor de Sillery, the old Marquis de Brissac, and others, who all
assured him that the matter should be followed up; and he resolved to make
it the subject of an exploration without delay. He sailed in one vessel,
and Vignan in another, the latter taking with him an ardent young
Frenchman, Albert de Brissac.

M. de Vignan, talking with the young Brissac on the voyage, told him
wonderful tales of monsters which were, he said, the guardians of the St.
Lawrence River. There was, he said, an island in the bay of Chaleurs, near
the mouth of that river, where a creature dwelt, having the form of a
woman and called by the Indians Gougou. She was very frightful, and so
enormous that the masts of the vessel could not reach her waist. She had
already eaten many savages and constantly continued to do so, putting them
first into a great pocket to await her hunger. Some of those who had
escaped said that this pocket was large enough to hold a whole ship. This
creature habitually made dreadful noises, and several savages who came on
board claimed to have heard them. A man from St. Malo in France, the Sieur
de Prevert, confirmed this story, and said that he had passed so near the
den of this frightful being, that all on board could hear its hissing, and
all hid themselves below, lest it should carry them off. This naturally
made much impression upon the young Sieur de Brissac, and he doubtless
wished many times that he had stayed at home. On the other hand, he
observed that both M. de Vignan and M. de Prevert took the tale very
coolly and that there seemed no reason why he should distrust himself if
they did not. Yet he was very glad when, after passing many islands and
narrow straits, the river broadened and they found themselves fairly in
the St. Lawrence and past the haunted Bay of Chaleurs. They certainly
heard a roaring and a hissing in the distance, but it may have been the
waves on the beach.

But this was not their last glimpse of the supposed guardians of the St.
Lawrence. As the ship proceeded farther up the beautiful river, they saw
one morning a boat come forth from the woods, bearing three men dressed to
look like devils, wrapped in dogs' skins, white and black, their faces
besmeared as black as any coals, with horns on their heads more than a
yard long, and as this boat passed the ship, one of the men made a long
address, not looking towards them. Then they all three fell flat in the
boat, when Indians rowed out to meet them and guided them to a landing.

Then many Indians collected in the woods and began a loud talk which they
could hear on board the ships and which lasted half an hour. Then two of
their leaders came towards the shore, holding their hands upward joined
together, and meanwhile carrying their hats under their upper garments and
showing great reverence. Looking upward they sometimes cried, "Jesus,
Jesus," or "Jesus Maria." Then the captain asked them whether anything ill
had happened, and they said in French, "Nenni est il bon," meaning that it
was not good. Then they said that their god Cudraigny had spoken in
Hochelaga (Montreal) and had sent these three men to show to them that
there was so much snow and ice in the country that he who went there would
die. This made the Frenchmen laugh, saying in reply that their god
Cudraigny was but a fool and a noddy and knew not what he said. "Tell
him," said a Frenchman, "that Christ will defend them from all cold, if
they will believe in him." The Indians then asked the captain if he had
spoken with Jesus. He answered No; but that his priests had, and they had
promised fair weather. Hearing this, they thanked the captain and told the
other Indians in the woods, who all came rushing out, seeming to be very
glad. Giving great shouts, they began to sing and dance as they had done
before. They also began to bring to the ships great stores of fish and of
bread made of millet, casting it into the French boats so thickly that it
seemed to fall from heaven. Then the Frenchmen went on shore, and the
people came clustering about them, bringing children in their arms to be
touched, as if to hallow them. Then the captain in return arranged the
women in order and gave them beads made of tin, and other trifles, and
gave knives to the men. All that night the Indians made great fires and
danced and sang along the shore. But when the Frenchmen had finally
reached the mouth of the Ottawa and had begun to ascend it, under Vignan's
guidance, they had reasons to remember the threats of the god Cudraigny.

Ascending the Ottawa in canoes, past cataracts, boulders, and precipices,
they at last, with great labor, reached the island of Allumette, at a
distance of two hundred and twenty-five miles. Often it was impossible to
carry their canoes past waterfalls, because the forests were so dense, so
that they had to drag the boats by ropes, wading among rocks or climbing
along precipices. Gradually they left behind them their armor, their
provisions, and clothing, keeping only their canoes; they lived on fish
and wild fowl, and were sometimes twenty-four hours without food.
Champlain himself carried three French arquebuses or short guns, three
oars, his cloak, and many smaller articles; and was harassed by dense
clouds of mosquitoes all the time. Vignan, Brissac, and the rest were
almost as heavily loaded. The tribe of Indians whom they at last reached
had chosen the spot as being inaccessible to their enemies; and thought
that the newcomers had fallen from the clouds.

When Champlain inquired after the salt sea promised by Vignan, he learned
to his indignation that the whole tale was false. Vignan had spent a
winter at the very village where they were, but confessed that he had
never gone a league further north. The Indians knew of no such sea, and
craved permission to torture and kill him for his deceptions; they called
him loudly a liar, and even the children took up the cry and jeered at
him. They said, "Do you not see that he meant to cause your death? Give
him to us, and we promise you that he shall not lie any more." Champlain
defended him from their attacks, bore it all philosophically, and the
young Brissac went back to France, having given up hope of reaching the
salt sea, except, as Champlain himself coolly said, "in imagination." The
guardians of the St. Lawrence had at least exerted their spell to the
extent of saying, Thus far and no farther. Vignan never admitted that he
had invented the story of the Gougou, and had bribed the Indians who acted
the part of devils,--and perhaps he did not,--but it is certain that
neither the giantess nor the god Cudraigny has ever again been heard from.



XIX

THE ISLAND OF DEMONS


Those American travellers who linger with delight among the narrow lanes
and picturesque, overhanging roofs of Honfleur, do not know what a strange
tragedy took place on a voyage which began in that quaint old port three
centuries and a half ago. When, in 1536, the Breton sailor Jacques Cartier
returned from his early explorations of the St. Lawrence, which he had
ascended as high as Hochelaga, King Francis I. sent for him at the lofty
old house known as the House of the Salamander, in a narrow street of the
quaint town of Lisieux. It now seems incredible that the most powerful
king in Europe should have dwelt in such a meagre lane, yet the house
still stands there as a witness; although a visitor must now brush away
the rough, ready-made garments and fishermen's overalls which overhang its
door. Over that stairway, nevertheless, the troubadours, Pierre Ronsard
and Clement Marot, used to go up and down, humming their lays or touching
their viols; and through that door De Lorge returned in glory, after
leaping down into the lions' den to rescue his lady's glove. The house
still derives its name from the great carved image of a reptile which
stretches down its outer wall, from garret to cellar, beside the doorway.

In that house the great king deigned to meet the Breton sailor, who had
set up along the St. Lawrence a cross bearing the arms of France with the
inscription _Franciscus Primus, Dei gratia Francorum Rex regnat_; and
had followed up the pious act by kidnapping the king Donnacona, and
carrying him back to France. This savage potentate was himself brought to
Lisieux to see his French fellow-sovereign; and the jovial king, eagerly
convinced, decided to send Cartier forth again, to explore for other
wonders, and perhaps bring back other kingly brethren. Meanwhile, however,
as it was getting to be an affair of royalty, he decided to send also a
gentleman of higher grade than a pilot, and so selected Jean François de
la Roche, Sieur de Roberval, whom he commissioned as lieutenant and
governor of Canada and Hochelaga. Roberval was a gentleman of credit and
renown in Picardy, and was sometimes jocosely called by Francis "the
little king of Vimeu." He was commissioned at Fontainebleau, and proceeded
to superintend the building of ships at St. Malo.

Marguerite Roberval, his fair-haired and black-eyed niece, was to go with
him on the voyage, with other ladies of high birth, and also with the
widowed Madame de Noailles, her _gouvernante_. Roberval himself
remained at St. Malo to superintend the building of the ships, and
Marguerite and her _gouvernante_ would sit for hours in a beautiful
nook by the shipyards, where they could overlook the vessels in rapid
construction, or else watch the wondrous swirl of the tide as it swept in
and out, leaving the harbor bare at low tide, but with eight fathoms of
water when the tide was full. The designer of the ships often came, cap in
hand, to ask or answer questions--one of those frank and manly French
fishermen and pilots, whom the French novelists describe as "_un solide
gaillard_," or such as Victor Hugo paints in his "Les Travailleurs de
la Mer." The son of a notary, Etienne Gosselin was better educated than
most of the young noblemen whom Marguerite knew, and only his passion for
the sea and for nautical construction had kept him a shipbuilder. No
wonder that the young Marguerite, who had led the sheltered life of the
French maiden, was attracted by his manly look, his open face, his merry
blue eyes, and curly hair. There was about her a tinge of romance, which
made her heart an easier thing to reach for such a lover than for one
within her own grade; and as the voyage itself was a world of romance, a
little more or less of the romantic was an easy thing to add. Meanwhile
Madame de Noailles read her breviary and told her beads and took little
naps, wholly ignorant of the drama that was beginning its perilous
unfolding before her. When the Sieur de Roberval returned, the shipbuilder
became a mere shipbuilder again.

Three tall ships sailed from Honfleur on August 22, 1541, and on one of
them, _La Grande Hermine_,--so called to distinguish it from a
smaller boat of that name, which had previously sailed with Cartier,--were
the Sieur de Roberval, his niece, and her _gouvernante_. She also had
with her a Huguenot nurse, who had been with her from a child, and cared
for her devotedly. Roberval naturally took with him, for future needs, the
best shipbuilder of St. Malo, Etienne Gosselin. The voyage was long, and
there is reason to think that the Sieur de Roberval was not a good sailor,
while as to the _gouvernante_, she may have been as helpless as the
seasick chaperon of yachting excursions. Like them, she suffered the most
important events to pass unobserved, and it was not till too late that she
discovered, what more censorious old ladies on board had already seen,
that her young charge lingered too often and too long on the quarter-deck
when Etienne Gosselin was planning ships for the uncle. When she found it
out, she was roused to just indignation; but being, after all, but a
kindly dowager, with a heart softened by much reading of the interminable
tales of Madame de Scudéry, she only remonstrated with Marguerite, wept
over her little romance, and threatened to break the sad news to the Sieur
de Roberval, yet never did so. Other ladies were less considerate; it all
broke suddenly upon the angry uncle; the youth was put in irons, and
threatened with flogging, and forbidden to approach the quarter-deck
again. But love laughs at locksmiths; Gosselin was relieved of his irons
in a day or two because he could not be spared from his work in designing
the forthcoming ship, and as both he and Marguerite were of a tolerably
determined nature, they invoked, through the old nurse, the aid of a
Huguenot minister on board, who had before sailed with Cartier to take
charge of the souls of some Protestant vagabonds on the ship, and who was
now making a second trip for the same reason. That night, after dark, he
joined the lovers in marriage; within twenty-four hours Roberval had heard
of it, and had vowed a vengeance quick and sure.

The next morning, under his orders, the vessel lay to under the lee of a
rocky island, then known to the sailors as l'Isle des Demons from the
fierce winds that raged round it. There was no house there, no living
person, no tradition of any; only rocks, sands, and deep forests. With
dismay, the ship's company heard that it was the firm purpose of Roberval
to put the offending bride on shore, giving her only the old nurse for
company, and there to leave her with provisions for three months, trusting
to some other vessel to take the exiled women away within that time. The
very ladies whose love of scandal had first revealed to him the alleged
familiarities, now besought him with many tears to abandon the thought of
a doom so terrible. Vainly Madame de Noailles implored mercy for the young
girl from a penalty such as was never imposed in any of Madame de
Scudéry's romances; vainly the Huguenot minister and the Catholic
chaplain, who had fought steadily on questions of doctrine during the
whole voyage, now united in appeals for pardon. At least they implored him
to let the offenders have a man-servant or two with them to protect them
against wild beasts or buccaneers. He utterly refused until, at last
wearied out, his wild nature yielded to one of those sudden impulses which
were wont to sweep over it; and he exclaimed, "Is it that they need a
man-servant, then? Let this insolent caitiff, Gosselin, be relieved of his
irons and sent on shore. Let him be my niece's servant or, since a
Huguenot marriage is as good as any in the presence of bears and
buccaneers, let her call the hound her husband, if she likes. I have done
with her; and the race from which she came disowns her forever."

Thus it was done. Etienne was released from his chains and sent on shore.
An arquebus and ammunition were given him; and resisting the impulse to
send his first shot through the heart of his tyrant, he landed, and the
last glimpse seen of the group as the _Grande Hermine_ sailed away,
was the figure of Marguerite sobbing on his shoulder, and of the unhappy
nurse, now somewhat plethoric, and certainly not the person to be selected
as a pioneer, sitting upon a rock, weeping profusely. The ship's sails
filled, the angry Roberval never looked back on his deserted niece, and
the night closed down upon the lonely Isle of Demons, now newly occupied
by three unexpected settlers, two of whom at least were happy in each
other.

A few boxes of biscuits, a few bottles of wine, had been put on shore
with them, enough to feed them for a few weeks. They had brought flint and
steel to strike fire, and some ammunition. The chief penalty of the crime
did not lie, after all, in the cold and the starvation and the wild beasts
and the possible visits of pirates; it lay in the fact that it was the
Island of Demons where they were to be left; and in that superstitious age
this meant everything that was terrible. For the first few nights of their
stay, they fancied that they heard superhuman voices in every wind that
blew, every branch that creaked against another branch; and they heard, at
any rate, more substantial sounds from the nightly wolves or from the
bears which ice-floes had floated to that northern isle. They watched
Roberval sail away, he rejoicing, as the old legend of Thevet says, at
having punished them without soiling his hands with their blood (_ioueux
de les auior puniz sans se souiller les mains en leurs sang_). They
built as best they could a hut of boughs and strewed beds of leaves, until
they had killed wild beasts enough to prepare their skins. Their store of
hard bread lasted them but a little while, but there were fruits around
them, and there was fresh water near by. "Yet it was terrible," says
Thevet's old narrative, "to hear the frightful sounds which the evil
spirits made around them, and how they tried to break down their abode,
and showed themselves in various forms of frightful animals; yet at last,
conquered by the constancy and perseverance of these repentant Christians,
the tormentors afflicted or disquieted them no more, save that often in
the night they heard cries so loud that it seemed as if more than five
thousand men were assembled together" (_plus de cent mil homes qui
fussent ensemble_).

So passed many months of desolation, and alas! the husband was the first
to yield. Daily he climbed the rocks to look for vessels; each night he
descended sadder and sadder; he waked while the others slept. Feeling that
it was he who had brought distress upon the rest, he concealed his
depression, but it soon was past concealing; he only redoubled his care
and watching as his wife grew the stronger of the two; and he faded slowly
away and died. His wife had nothing to sustain her spirits except the
approach of maternity--she would live for her child. When the child was
born and baptized in the name of the Holy Church, though without the
Church's full ceremonies, Marguerite felt the strength of motherhood;
became a better huntress, a better provider. A new sorrow came; in the
sixteenth or seventeenth month of her stay, the old nurse died also, and
not long after the baby followed. Marguerite now seemed to herself
deserted, even by Heaven itself; she was alone in that northern island
without comradeship; her husband, child, and nurse gone; dependent for
very food on the rapidly diminishing supply of ammunition. Her head swam;
for months she saw visions almost constantly, which only strenuous prayer
banished, and only the acquired habit of the chase enabled her, almost
mechanically, to secure meat to support life. Fortunately, those especial
sights and sounds of demons which had haunted her imagination during the
first days and nights on the island, did not recur; but the wild beasts
gathered round her the more when there was only one gun to alarm them; and
she once shot three bears in a day,--one a white bear, of which she
secured the skin.

What imagination can depict the terrors of those lonely days and still
lonelier nights? Most persons left as solitary tenants of an island have
dwelt, like Alexander Selkirk, in regions nearer the tropics, where there
was at least a softened air, a fertile soil, and the Southern Cross above
their heads; but to be solitary in a prolonged winter, to be alone with
the Northern Lights,--this offered peculiar terrors. To be ice-bound, to
hear the wolves in their long and dreary howl, to protect the very graves
of her beloved from being dug up, to watch the floating icebergs, not
knowing what new and savage visitor might be borne by them to the island,
what a complication of terror was this for Marguerite!

For two years and five months in all she dwelt upon the Isle of Demons,
the last year wholly alone. Then, as she stood upon the shore, some Breton
fishing-smacks, seeking codfish, came in sight. Making signals with fire
and calling for aid, she drew them nearer; but she was now dressed in furs
only, and seemed to them but one of the fancied demons of the island.
Beating up slowly and watchfully toward the shore, they came within
hearing of her voice and she told her dreary tale. At last they took her
in charge, and bore her back to France with the bearskins she had
prepared; and taking refuge in the village of Nautron, in a remote
province (Perigord), where she could escape the wrath of Roberval, she
told her story to Thevet, the explorer, to the Princess Marguerite of
Navarre (sister of Francis I.), and to others. Thevet tells it in his
"Cosmographie," and Marguerite of Navarre in her "Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles."

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