12 DISCOVERIES OF 1001. 



about the commencement of the fifteenth century, 

 it had progressively increased in population ; and, 

 by the latest accounts, consisted of twelve parishes, 

 one hundred and ninety villages, one bishop's see, 

 and two convents — one of which is supposed to 

 have been that which is described by Zeno as si- 

 tuated near the spring of hot water. A succession 

 of sixteen bishops is recorded in the Iceland an- 

 nals; but when the seventeenth w^as proceeding 

 from Norway in 1406 to take possession of his 

 see, a stream of ice had fixed itself to the coast 

 and rendered it completely inaccessible ; and from 

 that period to the present time, no intercourse 

 whatever has been had with the unfortunate colo- 

 nists. Thormoder Torfager, however, relates, in 

 his History of Greenland, that Amand, bishop of 

 Skalholt in Iceland, in returning to Norway from 

 that island about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, was driven by a storm near to the east coast 

 of Greenland, opposite to Herjolfsness, and got so 

 near as to be able to distino'uish the inhabitants 

 driving their cattle in the fields ; but the wind 

 coming fair, they made all sail back for Iceland. 

 Hans Egede conceives this account of Amand 

 worthy of credit, from which, he observes, " we 

 iearn that the eastern colony continued to flourish 

 at least one hundred and fifty years after com- 

 merce and navigation had ceased between it and 

 Greenland ;" and he adds, *' for aught we know to 



