48 
great extent. Being condemned to banishment for three years he 
determined upon making a voyage of discovery to this country. 
Soon after he had set sail he saw the point of land called Heriolfs- 
nees; and, after sailing a little more to the south-west, he entered 
a large inlet, which he called Eric’s Fiord, or Eric’s Sound, and 
passed the winter on a pleasant island in the vicinity of it, to which 
he gave the name of Eric’s Ey. In the following year he exa- 
mined part of the continent of this vast country; and, in the third 
year, he returned to Iceland, where, with a view that a consider- 
able number of people might be induced to follow him to the new 
discovered country, which he called Greenland, he made an exag- 
gerated description of its fertility. Accordingly there set out for 
this place twenty five vessels, with people and cattle for breeding; 
of which vessels fourteen only arrived safe. These first colonists were 
soon followed by more, as well from Norway as Iceland; and, in 
the space of a few years, their number increased so much, that they 
formed themselves in two bygds, or settlements, on part of the 
eastern and of the western coast, called Osterbygd and Wester- 
bygd: they increased so much, that they were divided into parishes, 
and subjected to a bishop. Some of the Danish Chronicles are 
rather too prolix in their enumeration of parishes, churches, monas- 
teries and villages, particularly as villages are not common either in 
Iceland or in the western parts of Norway. 
‘This account of the first settlements on the coast of Greenland 
rests on the authority of Snore Sturleson, a celebrated Icelandic 
judge and historiographer, who wrote his account in the year 1215. 
Other Danish chronicles place the discovery and population of Green- 
land in the year 800, 
The Christian religion, which was first embraced by Eric the 
Red and his son Leif, made extraordinary progress, and was dif- 
