212 THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



prayer ; but evening united us all in the scliool-room for 

 a short service. 



It was a very strange spectacle that we here witnessed. 

 In the old, decaying, plain-looking room, which might have 

 been taken for a barn, if the small organ, some wind in- 

 struments, the benches, and a green covered table had not 

 stamped it as something else, we sat with the missionaries' 

 wives on either side of the preacher; before us, on the 

 benches, the native men and women, and our people. 

 Near the preacher and ourselves stood the children. The 

 service began with a Greenland hymn, which was sung 

 by those present in the usual drawling manner, but other- 

 wise very nicely. Then a sermon in their native tongue. 

 The adult natives followed the discourse very devoutly ; 

 the children seemed but little impressed, and passed the 

 time in amusing themselves. After the Greenland ser- 

 mon followed a German hymn, which we sang badly 

 enough without accompaniment, and then the preacher 

 addressed a few earnest words to us which did not fail of 

 their effect. In simple words, he thanked the Most High 

 for our preservation ; then a hymn, and it was over. 



The excursion was carried out the next day. The 

 Island of Unartok, which is about twelve miles from 

 Lichtenau, particularly interested us, because of the 

 warm spring there. It had been mentioned by Ivar 

 Bardsen, the ancient ISTorthman chronicler, who wrote in 

 the beginning of the fifteenth century upon the Norse 

 settlements in Greenland. According to his account, a 

 Benedictine nunnery stood in the neighbourhood ; and 

 the spring, which in winter was much hotter than in 

 summer (it may have steamed more in the chilly atmo- 

 sphere) was then much used by the colonists as a bath. 



