the mountain sides by mighty glaciers, and lie to-day, a source of unfailing wonder to the unlearned as to how they came to be there.

Man appeared at last upon the scene; the Indian, and then, long after, the European. In 1535, Jacques Cartier, the first European, as far as we know, to ascend the St. Lawrence, creeping slowly from the Saguenay up towards the Indian village of Stadacona, on the spot where now is Quebec, must have noted the wide gap in the mountains which makes the Malbaie valley. Not far from Malbaie, he saw the so-called "porpoises," or white whales, (beluga, French, marsouin) that still disport themselves in great numbers in these waters, come puffing to the surface and writhe their whole length into view like miniature sea-serpents. They have heads, Cartier says, with no very great accuracy, "of the style of a greyhound," they are of spotless white and are found, he was told (incorrectly) only here in all the world. He anchored at Isle aux Coudres where he saw "an incalculable number of huge turtles." He admired its great and fair trees, now gone, alas, and gave the island its name—"the Isle of Hazel Nuts"—which we still use. For long years after Cartier, Malbaie remained a resort of its native savages only. Perhaps an occasional trader came to give these primitive people, in exchange for their valuable furs, European commodities, generally of little worth. In time the Europeans learned the great value of this trade and of the land which offered it. So France determined to colonize Canada and in 1608, when Champlain founded a tiny colony at Quebec, the most Christian King had announced a resolution to hold the country. Ere long Malbaie was to have a European owner.

Cap à l'Aigle from the West Shore of Murray Bay
"A great headland sloping down to the river in bold curves."

As Champlain went up from Tadousac to make his settlement of Quebec he noted Malbaie as sufficiently spacious. But its many rocks, he thought, made it unnavigable, except for the canoes of the Indians, whose light craft of bark can surmount all kinds of difficulties. Perhaps Champlain is a little severe on Malbaie which, when one knows how, is navigable enough for coasting schooners, but his observations are natural for a passing traveller. In the years after Quebec was founded no more can be said of Malbaie than that it was on the route from Tadousac to Quebec and must have been visited by many a vessel passing up to New France's small capital on the edge of the wilderness. In the summer of 1629 the occasional savages who haunted Malbaie might have seen an unwonted spectacle. Three English ships, under Lewis Kirke, had passed up the river and to him, Champlain, with a half-starved force of only sixteen men, had been obliged to surrender Quebec. Kirke was taking his captives down to Tadousac when, opposite Malbaie, he met a French ship coming to the rescue. A tremendous cannonade followed, the first those ancient hills had heard. It ended in disaster to France, and Kirke sailed on to Tadousac with the French ship as a prize.

When peace came France began more seriously the task of settling Canada. Though inevitably Malbaie would soon be colonized, it was still very difficult of access. A wide stretch of mountain and forest separated it from Quebec; not for nearly two hundred years after Champlain's time was a road built across this barrier. Moreover France's first years of rule in Canada are marked by conspicuous failure in colonizing work. The trading Company—the Company of New France or of "One Hundred Associates"—to which the country was handed over in 1633, thought of the fur trade, of fisheries, of profits—of anything rather than settlement, and never lived up to its promises to bring in colonists. It made huge grants of land with a very light heart. In 1653 a grant was made of the seigniory of Malbaie to Jean Bourdon, Surveyor-General of the Colony. But Bourdon seems not to have thought it worth while to make any attempt to settle his seigniory and, apparently for lack of settlement, the grant lapsed. Even the Company of New France treasured some idea that would-be land owners in a colony had duties to perform.

After thirty years France at length grew tired of the incompetence of the Company and in 1663 made a radical change. The great Colbert was already the guiding spirit in France and colonial plans he made his special care. Louis XIV too was already dreaming of a great over-sea Empire. The first step was to take over from the trading Company the direct government of the colony. The next was to get the right men to do the work in New France. An excellent start was made when, in 1665, Jean Talon was sent out to Canada as Intendant. He had a genius for organization. Though in rank below the Governor he, with the title of Intendant, did the real work of ruling; the Governor discharged its ceremonial functions. Talon had a policy. He wished to colonize, to develop industry, to promote agriculture. In his capacious brain new and progressive ideas were working. He brought in soldiers who became settlers, among them the first real seigneur of Malbaie. An adequate military force, the Carignan regiment, came out from France to awe into submission the aggressive Iroquois, who long had made Montreal, and even Quebec itself, unsafe by their sudden and blood-thirsty attacks. Travelling by canoe and batteau the regiment went from Quebec up the whole length of the St. Lawrence, landed on the south shore of Lake Ontario, and marched into the Iroquois country. With amazement and terror, those arrogant savages saw winding along their forest paths the glittering array of France. Some of their villages were laid low by fire. The French regiment had accomplished its task; with no spirit left the Iroquois made peace.

A good many officers of the Carignan regiment, with but slender prospects in France, decided to stay in Canada and to this day their names—Chambly, Verchères, Longueuil, Sorel, Berthier and others are conspicuous in the geography of the Province of Quebec. Malbaie was granted to a soldier of fortune, the Sieur de Comporté, who came to Canada at this time, but apparently was not an officer of the Carignan Regiment. His outlook at Malbaie cannot have been considered promising, for Pierre Boucher, who in 1664 published an interesting account of New France, declared the whole region between Baie St. Paul and the Saguenay to be so rugged and mountainous as to make it unfit for civilized habitation. But Philippe Gaultier, Sieur de Comporté, was of the right material to be a good colonist. Born in 1641 he was twenty-four years of age when he came to Canada. Already he had had some stirring adventures, one of which might well have proved grimly fatal had he not found a refuge across the sea. Comporté, then serving as a volunteer in a Company of Infantry led by his uncle, La Fouille, was involved in one of the bloody brawls of the time that Richelieu had made such stern efforts to suppress. The Company was in garrison at La Motte-Saint-Heray in Poitou. On July 9th, 1665, one of its members, Lanoraye, came in with the tale of an insult offered to the company by a civilian in the town. Lanoraye had been marching through the streets with a drum beating, in order to secure recruits, when one Bonneau, the local judge, attacked him, and took away the drum. Lanoraye rushed to arouse his fellow soldiers. When Comporté and half a dozen other hot-heads had listened to his tale, they cried with