2 INTRODUCTION. 



barbarous inhabitants of the ruins. The travellers, however, 

 contrived to possess themselves of a few of those records ; 

 and part, being sent to the French Academy, were deci- 

 phered as being some religious decrees written in an old 

 Tartarian dialect in use about the age of Tamerlane, Avho, 

 previously to his grand conquests in India, was nothing but 

 a powerful northern lord. Modern Russia even owes to 

 writers of polished talent, contemporary Avith the more im- 

 proved state of that empire, rather than to the rude 

 legends of her own inhabitants, whatever of elegance is 

 flung over her early history. 



With regard to the present subject, the scantiness of 

 materials to form an interesting history of Greenland, 

 renders the undertaking unsatisfactory and ungracious ; 

 but, with the reader's indulgence, so much shall be detailed 

 as appears most consistent mth fact. The particulars have 

 been carefully selected from such authorities as are the 

 most respectable on this head. 



Snorro Sturleggen, who lived in the twelfth century, is 

 stated to have been the author of the Speculum Regale, a 

 compilation of ancient Icelandic rhymes, collected in the 

 year 1315. This is the first historic light to guide inquiry 

 in the history of Greenland. The next writer to be noticed 

 is Torfaeus, who was by birth an Icelander. His book 

 bears the title of Grsenlandia Antiqua. Torfaeus appears 

 to have employed Sturleggen's work as an inexhaustible 



