thusiasm, escaped from her friends, and took passage, in spite of them, in one of the vessels.

All was ready; the ships set sail; but Olier, Dauversière, and Fancamp remained at home, as did also the other Associates, with the exception of Maisonneuve and Mademoiselle Mance. In the following February, an impressive scene took place in the Church of Notre Dame, at Paris. The Associates, at this time numbering about forty-five, with Olier at their head, assembled before the altar of the Virgin, and, by a solemn ceremonial, consecrated Montreal to the Holy Family. Henceforth it was to be called Villemarie de Montreal, — a sacred town, reared to the honor and under the patronage of Christ, St. Joseph, and the Virgin, to be typified by three persons on earth, founders respectively of the three destined communities, Olier, Dauversière, and a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys: the seminary to be consecrated to Christ, the Hôtel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the college to the Virgin.

But we are anticipating a little; for it was several years as yet before Marguerite Bourgeoys took an active part in the work of Montreal. She was the daughter of a respectable tradesman, and was now twenty-two years of age. Her portrait has come down to us; and her face is a mirror of frankness, loyalty, and womanly tenderness. Her qualities were those of good sense, conscientiousness, and a warm heart. She had known no miracles, ecstasies, or trances; and though afterwards, when her religious susceptibilities had reached a fuller development, a few such are recorded of her, yet even the Abbé Faillon, with the best intentions, can credit her with but a meagre allowance of these celestial favors. Though in the midst of visionaries, she distrusted the supernatural, and avowed her belief, that, in his government of the world, God does not often set aside its ordinary laws. Her religion was of the affections, and was manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty. She

had felt no vocation to the cloister, but had taken the vow of chastity, and was attached, as an externe, to the Sisters of the Congregation of Troyes, who were fevered with eagerness to go to Canada. Marguerite, however, was content to wait until there was a prospect that she could do good by going; and it was not till the year 1653, that, renouncing an inheritance, and giving all she had to the poor, she embarked for the savage scene of her labors. To this day, in crowded school-rooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor, and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal.

Maisonneuve, with his forty men and four women, reached Quebec too late to ascend to Montreal that season. They encountered distrust, jealousy, and opposition. The agents of the Company of the Hundred Associates Looked on them askance; and the Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, saw a rival governor in Maisonneuve. Every means was used to persuade the adventurers to abandon their project and settle at Quebec. Montmagny called a council of the principal persons of his colony, who gave it as their opinion that the new-comers had better exchange Montreal for the Island of Orleans, where they would be in a position to give and receive succor; while, by persisting in their first design, they would expose themselves to destruction, and be of use to nobody. Maisonneuve, who was present, expressed his surprise that they should assume to direct his affairs. "I have not come here," he said, "to deliberate, but to act. It is my duty and my honor to found a colony at Montreal; and I would go, if every tree were an Iroquois !

At Quebec there was little ability and no inclination to shelter the new colonists for the winter; and they would have fared ill, but for the gener

the eloquence of a Jesuit, lately returned from that most arduous mission, to convince her that the attempt would be as useless as rash.

It was the 8th of May when Maisonneuve and his followers embarked at St. Michel; and as the boats, deepladen with men, arms, and stores, moved slowly on their way, the forest, with leaves just opening in the warmth of spring, lay on their right hand and on their left, in a flattering semblance of tranquillity and peace. But behind woody islets, in tangled thickets and damp ravines, and in the shade and stillness of the columned woods, lurked everywhere a danger and a terror.

What shall we say of these adventurers of Montreal, of these who bestowed their wealth, and, far more, of these who sacrificed their peace and risked their lives, on an enterprise at once so romantic and so devout? Surrounded as they were with illusions, false lights, and false shadows; breathing an atmosphere of miracle; compassed about with angels and devils; urged with stimulants most powerful, though unreal; their minds drugged, as it were, to preternatural excitement, it is very difficult to judge of them. High merit, without doubt, there was in some of their number; but one may beg to be spared the attempt to measure or define it. To estimate a virtue involved in conditions so anomalous demands, perhaps, a judgment more than human.

The Roman Church, sunk in corruption and disease when the Reformation began, was roused by that fierce trumpet-blast to purge and brace herself anew. Unable to advance, she drew back to the fresher and comparatively purer life of the past; and the fervors of medieval Christianity were renewed in the sixteenth century. In many of its aspects, this enterprise of Montreal belonged to the time of the first Crusades. The spirit of Godfrey de Bouillon lived again in Chomedey de Maisonneuve; and in Marguerite Bourgeoys was realized that fair ideal of Christian womanhood, a flower of earth expand

ing in the rays of heaven, which soothed with gentle influence the wildness of a barbarous age.

On the 17th of May, 1642, Maisonneuve's little flotilla-a pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft moved by sails, and two row-boats - approached Montreal; and all on board raised in unison a hymn of praise. Montmagny was with them to deliver the island, on behalf of the Company of the Hundred Associates, to Maisonneuve, representative of the Associates of Montreal. And here, too, was Father Vimont, Superior of the missions; for the Jesuits had been prudently invited to accept the spiritual charge of the young colony. On the following day, they glided along the green and solitary shores now thronged with the life of a busy city, and landed on the spot which Champlain, thirtyone years before, had chosen as the fit site of a settlement. It was a tongue or triangle of land, formed by the junction of a rivulet with the St. Lawrence, and known afterwards as Point Callière. The rivulet was bordered by a meadow, and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. Early spring flowers were blooming in the young grass, and birds of varied plumage flitted among the boughs.

Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on his knees. His followers imitated his example; and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte Barré, decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders. Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont, in the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall, his men clustering around him,

soldiers, sailors, artisans, and laborers, -all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was

IN

N the summer of 1741, Vitus Behring, a descendant of the Danish Vikings, who roamed the seas in the search of strange lands to pillage or conquer, set sail from the Kamchatka coast on a similar mission in the service of the Russian Empire. Leaving Awatska Bay, the present site of Petropaulovski, he sailed to the southeast as far as the latitude of 46° N., when, finding no land, he turned to the northeast. On the 18th of July he sighted a rocky range of coast, - behind which towered lofty mountains, their summits white with perpetual snows,-and thus caught the first glimpse of what is now known as Russian America. The point where Behring first saw land is supposed to have been lat. 58° N., and the lofty mountains were probably Mount Fairweather and its neighboring peaks.

Sailing north, the coast was soon found to take a westerly direction, and Behring skirted it for miles without stopping to explore the shores. His ship was badly damaged during the long cruise, his crew sick and dispirited; so, instead of pushing through the passage that was eventually found, he sailed homewards, skirting the long chain of islands that lie like steppingstones between the two continents, and at last finding, with his fellow-sailors, a grave on one of the islands nearest the Kamchatka coast. He had accom

plished his task of adding a new territory to the Russian Empire.

In 1775, the Spanish Captain De la Bodega, cruising up the Pacific coast of America to add new lands to the American possessions of the Spanish crown, reached lat. 58° N., probably in the neighborhood of Sitka. In accordance with its policy in regard to American discoveries, the voyage of De la Bodega was kept secret by the Spanish government, and only became known when the title to the coast was disputed in after years.

Three years later the adventurous British navigator, Captain Cook, having passed around the southernmost point of the American Continent, undertook to return to England by passing around its northern extremity, thus solving the question of a northwest passage by sailing to the northeast. Following the coast closely, he discovered a deep indentation, known now as Cook's Inlet, which he hoped might prove to be the long-sought passage. Having discovered his mistake, he sailed in the track of Behring along the Aliaska peninsula, passed through the island chain, and coasted up to Behring's Strait, through which he passed, and skirted the northern shore of the continent until, at 161° 46′ W., he was stopped by an impenetrable barrier of ice stretching northward from

Icy Cape. This was on the 18th of August. For eleven days he vainly sought a channel through the ice-field, and then reluctantly turned back, to meet his death, like his Danish predecessor, on the return voyage.

In 1826, Captain Beechey, sent out by the British government to meet Sir John Franklin, sailed through Behring's Strait, and reached Point Barrow, one hundred and twenty-six miles northeast of the farthest point reached by Cook, and there was stopped by ice. At the same time Sir John Franklin, travelling westward from the Mackenzie River, reached long. 148° 52′ W., or about seven and a half degrees from the point reached by Beechey from the westward.

In 1837, Dease and Simpson, two servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, reached Point Barrow from the east, and thus completed the coast exploration of Russian America. Just after Dease and Simpson had turned back from Point Barrow an expedition sent out by the Russian American Fur Company reached the same point from the west, and found the natives assembling in great numbers to kill the English explorers, who, by turning back, had escaped the dangers of which they were ignorant. The Russians, being few in number, beat a hasty retreat; and thus Point Barrow remained the ultima Thule of exploration on the northern coast.

From the first discovery of the coast the Russians were active in its exploration. The government encouraged expeditions in search of a northeast passage to the Atlantic, whilst mercantile adventurers examined the coast, and the numerous islands that masked it. In 1783 a commercial expedition followed the line of the Aleutian Islands and the coast down to the sixtieth parallel, finding the rocky shores swarming with the sea otter, and the land beyond full of foxes. A settlement was made on the island of Kodiak, and a fur-trade opened with the Asiatic continent. Other explorations were made north and south, with the same result

of finding valuable hunting-grounds for the fur-bearing animals. In 1799 the Emperor Paul gave permission to these several companies to organize in one, under the name of the Russian American Fur Company, and granted the power to occupy and subject to Russia all territory north of 55° not already occupied or claimed by any other nation, with the exclusive privilege of hunting and trading in all such territory. In this way a chain of trading-posts and forts was formed, stretching from Dixon's Entrance to Norton Sound. The headquarters of the company were in time removed from Kodiak Island to the island of Sitka, seventeen degrees farther east, where a considerable settlement of Russians, Aleutians, and natives was formed.

The operations of the fur-traders were confined chiefly to the islands skirting the coast, and to the immediate shores of the main-land. A lofty range of mountains slopes down to the sea from Dixon's Entrance to Cape Spencer, and beyond this the Russians did not penetrate. The country behind was hunted by the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was an unsettled question how far the rights of each company extended. By the treaties of 1824 and 1825, the Russians were confirmed in possession of the whole northwestern peninsula west of 141° W., and a narrow strip of coast down to Observatory Inlet, with all the islands of the coast. A lease of the coast from Cape Spencer to the southern limit was granted to the Hudson's Bay Company for hunting and trading purposes.

The successive exploring and commercial expeditions along the coast had made its general configuration and characteristics well known, even the lonely shores of Behring's Sea having become familiar to the Russian navigator and fur-trader. Of the interior of the great peninsula which formed the chief possession of Russia on the American main-land little or nothing was known. Vague rumors came to the traders at Kodiak, in the early days of the Fur Company, of a great river