176 THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



practised in climbing is it possible to penetrate a step 

 further, wlien they may reach a rock which suggests 

 nothing but a retreat or a giddy fall. 



This green flat spot of land the Moravian Brotherhood 

 have chosen for their most southerly mission station. 

 The Northmen had already lived here. As the brothers' 

 house was being built, traces were found of their old 

 settlement in the ground. Friedrichsthal is, indeed, one 

 of the most lovely spots in Greenland. Open and plea- 

 santly situated on the grassy sward, and enclosed in a 

 wide semicircle of high mountains, it makes a good im- 

 pression on all comers ; how much more so on us, 

 comparatively raised from the dead ! 



" Hurrah ! hurrah ! European houses, Friedrichsthal !" 

 Indeed, there lay before us two low, red-painted houses. 

 At this moment sprang up a most welcome breeze, and 

 from our flagstaff the Grerman flag fluttered lustily. I 

 sat behind, with the glass to my eye, viewing the land. 

 At the door of the mission-house a blue dress was visible 

 for a moment, and then disappeared; now came a whole 

 company from the house down to the strand ; they had 

 seen us. The rocks of the look-out hill, too, were alive. 

 A European strode up and down, like an ofiBicial guardian 

 of order. Was it possible that in Greenland were 

 already to be found harbour-masters and other govern- 

 ment ofiicers ? What I had at first conjectured to be a 

 heap of stones now stood upright. It was a group of 

 oddly dressed human beings, natives, who crouching close 

 tog-ether, with their skin clothes and fawn-coloured faces, 

 could not be distinguished from the cliffs. Now the 

 boats neared the shore. Even the water was alive. A 

 man approached us in a canoe, but when he saw us would 



