INTRODUCTION. 9 



their appearance in great numbers in West Greenland ; and 

 their first onset produced the death of eighteen Norwegians. 

 This petty war continued long enough to obtain for the 

 country the name of Old or Lost Greenland among Euro- 

 peans ; and the natives still remember the war of extermi- 

 nation carried on by their forefathers with the Kabluneet, 

 that is, the European intruders, and their havino- bravely 

 killed or expelled the invaders. 



To another cause may also be attributed this catastrophe. 

 In the year 1350, a great plague desolated nearly all 

 Europe, but ravaged most severely the northern countries. 

 Possibly the ruinous effects of this pestilence may have 

 reached Greenland, and destroyed the scanty colonies 

 there. Excessive cold is known to approximate, in its 

 effects, to excessive heat ; and to this cause principally is 

 attributed the numerous and civilized population of Iceland 

 having been swept away during a similar visitation. The 

 journal of Bishop Egede records a similar waste of human 

 life, among the natives, which he witnessed to be produced 

 by the baneful contagion of the small-pox, introduced by 

 the crews of some ships that conveyed thither a Moravian 

 mission, in the year 1733, and which raged from September 

 in that year, till the June following. At one place alone, 

 200 families of Greenlanders were cut off, leaving only 

 eighteen survivors. 



That the period of the former pestilence must have been 



