328 



was of no particular interest at first, when it could not have been 

 foreseen that they would become so common and so popular a 

 dish. It has recently been pointed out to me that th eexpression 

 nous may not mean "I, Lescarbot, and my party," but "we 

 Frenchmen," in which case thev could hardly have arrived 

 earlier, but may have been brought over between 1607 and 1616 

 by some later expedition than that which Lescarbot accompanied. 

 This however would seem a strained interpretation of the author's 

 words, and, although it may not be conclusively proved, there can 

 be little doubt that the roots were imported into France on the 



occasion 



Lescarbot has unfortunately done his best to confuse the 

 identity of the plant of which he meant to speak by adding, 



liatelv after his complaint of the Parisian street-criers, 



inmie 



" les Sauvages les appellent Chiquebi, & s'engendrent volon- 

 tiers pres les chenes." That he was wrong in his statement was 

 long ago pointed out by Asa Gray,* who tells us that Chiquebi 

 was an eastern Algonkin name for the tubers of Apios tuberosa, 

 the common ground nuts, not for those of Helianthus tnbero.su*. 

 Gray indicates the source of Lescarbot' s error. In the previous 

 year, 1616, there had appeared at Lyont the "Relation de la 

 JSTouvelle France/' by Father Pierre Biard, who arrived id 

 Acadie on Whitsunday, 1611. Father Biard says, " ils 

 allerent a la queste du gland et des racines. Ces racines sont 



et s'enaendrent volontiers auvres 



?> 



h 



appeles en Sauvage chiquebi 9 



des chesnes; elles sont comme truffes, mais meilleures, et crois- 

 sent sous terre enfilees l'une a P autre en forme de chapelet. 

 Now the words in italices are practically identical, even to the 

 phrase " s'engendrent volontiers/' with those of Lescarbot, who 

 clearly was not making an observation of his own, either as to 

 the name chiquebi or as to the predilection for growing under 

 oaks, but was simply quoting Father Biard, without noticing that 

 the tubers mentioned c 

 himself been speaking. 



"With regard to these Apios tubers, found by Champlain in 

 1603 and described by Biard ; they had long before been mentioned 

 by Thomas Harriot in his " Brief e and true report of the new 

 found land of Virginia,"? " Openauk are a kind of motes of 

 round forme, some of the bigne^e of Walnuts, some farre greater, 

 which are found in moist and marish grounds growing many 

 together one by another in ropes, as though they were fastened 

 with a string. Being boiled or sodden, they are very good meat. 

 Monardes calleth these roots. Beads or" Pater noxtti of Si. 

 Helena." Then in Gosnold's " Briefe and True Relation of his 



* Am. Journ. ScL, 3rd series, xxv. p. 244. 



t The British Museum does not possess the original edition, po I ha 1 

 only seen the reprint in " Eelations des Jesuites," Quebec, 1858, at p. 43. 

 It was after the murder of Henri IV. in 1610 that the Jesuits actually 

 obtained entrance to New France, to the apparent annoyance of Lescarbot, 

 who distrusted father Biard. 



X The name is also spelt Harriott and Heriot. The original edition of 

 1588 is not paged, but this passage will be found at C 4, or at p. 32 in the 

 privately printed facsimile of *l900. 



