The Pine-tree coast . SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN. A VOYAGE TO NORUMBEGA. 255 Jean Alfonse, called the Saintongeois, was contemporary with Verrazano,Rarmentier, and Cartier, whose discoveries he would Beem to have been desirousof emulating. His surname of Saintongeois identifies him with thai fruitfulold province in the wesl of France, thai in later times gave De Monts andChamplain to the cause of American colonization. Our judgment of Alfonse is based largely upon the verdict of writers t histime. The sonnets ami other eulogistic verse addressed to him bear witness toour day how high Cegentilcapitainede
The Pine-tree coast . SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN. A VOYAGE TO NORUMBEGA. 255 Jean Alfonse, called the Saintongeois, was contemporary with Verrazano,Rarmentier, and Cartier, whose discoveries he would Beem to have been desirousof emulating. His surname of Saintongeois identifies him with thai fruitfulold province in the wesl of France, thai in later times gave De Monts andChamplain to the cause of American colonization. Our judgment of Alfonse is based largely upon the verdict of writers t histime. The sonnets ami other eulogistic verse addressed to him bear witness toour day how high Cegentilcapitainedemer stood in the popular esteem. So also to these performances we owe about allwe know, or are likely to know, of Alfonses life, through the scanty scraps of persona] history, thrown in at hazard, and to which, no doubt, the poet him-self attached the least importance. Besides these poetical effusions, of which he is the subject, Alfonse has lefta manuscript cosmography composed or dictated by himself, bearing date in. ~\I\I MALO. L545, which, no doubt, served as the foundation for the very rare and curiouslittle volume, edited by a strange hand, and printed in L559, with the titleVoyages Aventureux du Capitaine Jean Alphonse Saintongeois. fts publi-cation is due to Saint-*; dais and dean de Marnef. When Koberval followed Cartier to Canada, as the kings viceroy, Alfonsewas master-pilot of the expedition. In the cosmography referred to he assertsthat he had been into a bay as far as tie- 42d degree, lying between Norumbegaami Florida: but not having searched it to the bottom, he could not well saywhether this bay joined Norumbega with Florida or not. After describing thecape and river of Norumbega, Alfonse goes on to say that up the said river,fifteen leagues, there is a town which is called Norombegue, ami there is in it ag 1 people, and they have many peltries of many kinds of furs. The inhabi-tant-, he ptells tis. were dusky. Alfonse may well be pardoned some exaggerations, a
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