260 GREENLAND 



Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter 

 without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means 

 thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards, 

 when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally, 

 Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, 

 who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, 

 gave him his patronage, the result being that a com- 

 pany was formed at Bergen for the development of 

 trade and the propagation of the gospel ; and, on the 

 3rd of May, 1721, the Hope set sail from there for 

 Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including 

 the missionary and his wife and family. 



His landing-place was on an island at the mouth 

 of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the 

 Greenlanders very different from what he had sup- 

 posed ; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a 

 profitable trade with them and keeping it quiet. To 

 begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appear- 

 ance ; and their language, instead of being a Scandi- 

 navian dialect, was of the same character as that of 

 the Eskimos of Labrador and not at all easy to learn. 

 Learn it, however, he and his family did ; and among 

 the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with 

 truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for 

 life amid much disaster until, with the help of his 

 son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the 

 mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became 

 permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the 

 western coast as they are found to-day. 



Though there were no Norsemen, there were many 

 traces of them, the most interesting being the house of 

 Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close to Erik's 



