parts of these drifting shoals, with the lakes or openings interspersed, remain unbroken, and on them myriads of seals may be found. In the month of March or April, as soon as the ice-fields descend with the currents from Davis' Straits, many small ships, not only from the harbours of the east coast of Newfoundland but even from the distant Scotch ports, particularly Aberdeen, put out to sea and boldly plunge into all the openings of the ice-fields to make war upon the seals. Armed with firelocks and heavy bludgeons the crews surprise the animals on the ice. In this way thousands are killed yearly from the north, but their numbers have latterly decreased, and the seal catchers pay the penalty of their heedless and indiscriminate slaughter.

A mysterious Region-Ancient Scandinavian Colonists-Their Decline and FallHans Egede-His Trials and Success-- Foundation of Godthaab-Herrenhuth Missionaries-Lindenow-The Scoresbys-Clavering--The Danish Settlements in Greenland-The Greenland Esquimaux-Seal Catching-The White Dolphin -The Narwhal-Shark Fishery-Fiskernasset-Birds- -Reindeer HuntingIndigenous Plants-Drift-wood-Mineral Kingdom-Mode of Life of the Greenland Esquimaux-The Danes in Greenland-Beautiful Scenery-Ice Caves.

IN many respects Greenland is one of the most remarkable

countries of the Arctic zone. The whole of the northern coast of continental America, from Cape Lisburne to Belle Isle Straits, is known; the borders of Siberia fronting the icy ocean have been thoroughly explored by water and by land the distance of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya from the has long since been determined; but how far Greenland may reach to the north, we know not-though nearly a thousand years have passed since the Icelander Günbjorn (970 A.D.) first saw its high mountain coast, and

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in spite of all the attempts made since that time to circumnavigate it. The interior of the island-or continent as it may perhaps more justly be called, for it has a surface of at least 750,000 square miles, and is probably larger than Australia-is also unknown; for of this vast extent of territory only the narrow shores of the coast-line seemed to be inhabitable, or even accessible to man. On penetrating into the deeper fjords, all the valleys are found blocked with glaciers, which, on climbing the heights, are seen to pass into a monotonous plateau of ice, or névé, which seems to cover and conceal the whole interior. Thus, from its physical configuration, Greenland may well be called a mysterious region; and, strange to say, the history of the decline and fall of its first colonists is as little known as its geography.

We have seen in a previous chapter that Iceland, so peaceful in the present day, was peopled in the ninth century with a highly turbulent race of jarls and vikings. One of these worthies, called Erik Rauda, or the Red, having twice dyed his hands with blood, was banished by the Althing (982) for a term of years, and resolved to pass the time of his compulsory absence in exploring the land discovered by Günnbjorn. After spending three years on its western coasts, he returned to Iceland, and made so favourable a report of the new country, which-knowing the advantages of a good name-he called Greenland, that in 986 he induced a large body of colonists to sail with him and settle there. Other emigrants followed, and in a few years all the habitable places of southern Greenland were occupied.

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The colony, which soon after its foundation adopted the Christian religion, was divided into two districts or bygds' (from the Icelandic 'byggia' to inhabit), by an intervening tract of land named Ubygd, the uninhabitable' or 'uninhabited.' The West Bygd reached from lat. 66° down to 62°, and contained, in its best days, 90 farms and 4 churches. South of it lay the desert, Ubygd,' of 70 geographical miles, terminated by the East Bygd, consisting of 190 farms, and having 2 towns, Gardar and Alba, 1 cathedral, and 11 churches. The whole population may probably have amounted to 6,000 souls. The country was governed by Icelandic laws, and the first of its eighteen bishops, Arnold, was

SCANDINAVIAN COLONIES IN GREENLAND.

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elected in 1121, the last being Endride Andreason, who was consecrated in 1406. In spite of its poverty and distance, Greenland was obliged to contribute its mite to the revenues of the papal chair, for we read in the ancient annalists, that, in 1326, its tribute, consisting of walrus teeth, was sold by the pope's agent, Bertram of Ortolis, to a merchant of Flanders for the sum of 12 livres and 14 sous.

The time, however, was now fast approaching when the Greenland colony was not only to cease paying tithes and Peter's pence, but to be swept away. During the course of the fourteenth century it was visited by one misfortune after another. The black death, which carried off twenty-five millions of Europeans, did not spare its distant fjords (1348-9); the Esquimaux harassed the survivors with repeated attacks, killing some, and carrying away others captive. A hostile fleet, suspected to be English, laid waste the country in 1418; and finally, the revolutions and wars which broke out in Scandinavia after the death of Queen Margaret of Waldemar, caused Greenland to be entirely neglected and forgotten. The last colonists either retreated to Iceland, or were destroyed by the Esquimaux, and many years elapsed before Greenland was again thought of as a place where Scandinavians had once been living. At length, King Frederic II. of Denmark sent out Mogens Heineson, a famous sea-cock' as the chroniclers style him, to the south-eastern coast of Greenland (1581), to see if men of a Norse origin still dwelt along those ice-bound fjords. Heineson reached the coast, but the great transparency of the air, which in the Polar regions frequently causes strange optical delusions, led him into a singular error. After having sailed for many hours in the same direction, and still seeing the mountains which seemed quite near recede as he advanced, he fancied himself fettered by an invisible power, and thus the famous sea-cock' returned home with the report that, detained by a magnetic rock, he had not been able to reach the land.

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In 1605, King Christian IV. of Denmark sent out a new Greenland expedition, consisting of three ships, under the command of Godske Lindenow, and the guidance of James Hall, an English pilot. This time no magnetic rocks

intervened; but the ships having separated, Hall landed on the west coast, which had already been rediscovered and visited by Davis, Hudson, Baffin, and other Arctic navigators; while Lindenow, anchoring off Cape Farewell, kidnapped two Esquimaux, who afterwards died of nostalgia in Denmark. But neither Lindenow, who the year after again made his appearance on the western coast of Greenland, nor two later expeditions under Carsten Richardson and Dannell, were able to effect a landing on any part of the eastern coast. It was in sight, but the drift-ice made it inaccessible. They were equally unsuccessful in finding any traces of the lost colony, which came at length to be regarded as a mere Scandinavian myth. But while no one else cared about its existence, the ardent Hans Egede (born in Norway, January 31, 1686), pastor of Vaage, in the Lofoten Islands, still continued to cherish its memory. He had read in the ancient chronicles about the old Christian communities in Greenland, and could not believe in their total extinction. He felt the deepest concern in the fate of their descendants, and the thought that after so long a separation from the mother country they must needs be plunged in barbarism and heathen darkness, left him no rest by night or day. At length he resolved to devote his life to their spiritual welfare, and to become the apostle of rediscovered or regenerated Greenland. His zeal and perseverance overcame a thousand difficulties. Neither the public ridicule, nor the coldness of the authorities to whom he vainly applied for assistance, nor the exhortations of his friends, could damp his ardour. At length, after years of fruitless endeavours, after having given up his living and sacrificed his little fortune in the prosecution of his plans, he succeeded in forming a Greenland Company, with a capital of 9,000 dollars, and in obtaining an annual stipend from the Danish Missionary Fund of 300 dollars, to which King Frederick IV. added a gift of 200 dollars. With three ships, the largest of which, 'The Hope,' had forty colonists on board, Egede, accompanied by his wife and four children, set sail from the port of Bergen on May 12, 1721, and reached Greenland on July 3, after a long and tedious passage. The winds had driven him to the western coast, in latitude 64°,