" Yet it kept itsplace on maps till 1640, and even Heylin in his "Cosmography" (1669)speaks of "Norumbega and its fair city," though he fears that the latternever existed.It is a curious fact that the late Mr. Justin Winsor, the eminenthistorian, after much inquiry among the present descendants of the Indiantribes in Maine, could never find any one who could remember to have heardthe name of Norumbega.XVIIITHE GUARDIANS OF THE ST. LAWRENCEWhen in 1611 the Sieur de Champlain went back to France to report hiswonderful explorations in Canada, he was soon followed by a youngFrenchman named Vignan, who had spent a whole winter among the Indians, ina village where there was no other white man. This was a method oftenadopted by the French for getting more knowledge of Indian ways andcommanding their confidence. Vignan had made himself a welcome guest inthe cabins, and had brought away many of their legends, to which he addedsome of his own. In particular, he declared that he had penetrated intothe interior until he had come upon a great lake of salt water, far to thenorthwest. This was, as it happened, the very thing which the Frenchgovernment and all Europe had most hoped to find. They had always believedthat sooner or later a short cut would be discovered across the newlyfound continent, a passage leading to the Pacific Ocean and far Cathay.
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