1001. THE SCANDINAVIANS. H 



when they attended on their chieftains to the 

 mild air of Spain, or Sicily, and sung their valiant 

 deeds."* 



The Greenland colonies were less fortunate. The 

 great island (if it be not a peninsula) known by the 

 name of Greenland, is divided into two distinct parts 

 by a central ridge of lofty mountains, stretching 

 north and south, and covered with perpetual ice 

 and snow. On the east and the west sides of this 

 ridge, the ancient Scandinavians had established 

 colonies. That on the west had progressively in- 

 creased until it enumerated four parishes, containing 

 one hundred villages : but being engaged in per- 

 petual hostility with the native tribes, in possession 

 of this territory and of the neighbouring islands, to 

 whom they gave the name of Skroelings, but who 

 have since been known by that of Eskimaux, the 

 colony on that side would appear to have been ulti- 

 mately destroyed by these hostile natives. The 

 ruins of their edifices were still visible in 1721, when 

 that pious and amiable missionary Hans Egede went 

 to that country, on its being re-colonized by the 

 Greenland Company of Bergen in Norway, and 

 have since been more circumstantially described. 



The fate of the eastern colony was, if possible, 

 still more deplorable. From its first settlement by 

 Eric Rauda in 983 to its most flourishing period 



* Introd. to Arct. Zool. i. p. 44. 



