﻿132 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



On Nantucket, which is bleak in winter, sheep are often left thus 

 uncared for, as well as on both sides of Narragansett Bay, according 

 to the correspondence appended to Rafn's huge Latin book. Also, 

 the Chincoteague ponies of the Maryland and Virginia shore have 

 supported themselves independently for much more than a century, 

 though there is some zero weather in most winters, if only for a day 

 or two. The question is one of food rather than temperature, and 

 there is usually food for ruminants in the marshes. When the coast 

 line of Narragansett and Massachusetts Bays was lower than now we 

 may suppose that marsh-grazing was much more plentiful. 



There is a plain intention in this part of the saga to contrast the 

 conditions of their northern and southern Wineland homes in the 

 months that try all resources. Champlain 1 does the same as between 

 the same localities. Besides his statement that no one would foresee 

 the severity of the St. Croix winter from the summer of that region 

 (compare with the saga) he says that the winter life of the few 

 Indians there " seems a very miserable one." He tells of really 

 murderous hardships endured by his own companions. But at 

 Nauset he was told that the snow fell only to the depth of a foot or 

 less, and he adds ; " I conclude that this region is of moderate tempera- 

 ture and the winter not severe." Now the Nauset Indians were close 

 neighbors and allies of those about Massachusetts and Narragansett 

 Bays and their conditions must have been nearly identical. 



As to the delightfulness of the Narragansett country we have 

 Yerrazano's panegyric of nearly a hundred years before, which de- 

 clares that it will produce anything; also the commendation of many 

 later writers and the plain testimony of the land and water themselves. 



Thorfinn and his party met their first grape-vines and wild grain 

 at Hop, so far as we know, for we can hardly count the plants which 

 Haki and Hsekia may have reached in their dubious southern excur- 

 cion. The impression was great and immediate. We are told " They 

 found self-sown wheat fields on all the land there wherever there 

 were hollows and wherever there was hilly ground there were vines." 

 Not grain nor grapes at that season, for it was spring, and no inter- 

 polator has been at work here. The statement would have fitted many 

 places in southern New England, so far as the vines are concerned, 

 and one place about as well as another. As already explained, it would 

 not fit any more northern coast region. 



Three grains have been called " wheat " in America, which are 

 not really so. Prof. Fernald's 2 Elymns arenarius (lyme grass, strand 



1 Voyages of Champlain: Orig. Narr. of Early Amer. Hist., pp. 25-96. 

 2 Fernald: The Plants of Vinland. Rhodora, Feb. 1910. 



