66 NATIVES OF GREENLAND. 



of twenty leaoues a day. That is tlie way in which they 

 describe a day's rowing in a kaiak. In this manner it is 

 very plain that they might have passed along the arctic 

 shores of North America ; and if the conjecture be 

 plausible, they might, year after year, have extended them- 

 selves through the numerous waters that are sprinkled over 

 that unexplored region, exulting in the solitudes they met 

 with, and which to them were secure blessings. 



Thus have they, in the course of their emigration, passed 

 from Siberia into America, and spread themselves over 

 all the shores of North America to the eastward, always 

 settling upon low islands, contiguous to the best waters for 

 killing seals and wild fowl, &c. : a people so accustomed 

 to hardy fare could not be much at a loss to find a re- 

 sidence on such a coast, whence the passage to Greenland 

 was not diflicult. The latter, however, must have been 

 attended with much difficulty and danger. But that it has 

 been effected is undoubtedly true, as the first European 

 adventurers found them in possession of that country in 

 the tenth century. So also about that period they were 

 found as tar south as Newfoundland. There must con- 

 seqently have elapsed a great number of years before 

 they could have advanced so far southward ; and, of course, 

 their emigration must have commenced at a period previous 

 to the Christian era. 



In the course of their wanderings, coming in contact 



