56 
the author (Thormodus Torfus) adds his own; but he confesses 
fairly, that he does not think it to be a correct or a satisfactory one. 
Be this as it may, his work is the best critical historical account that 
ever was published on Kast Greenland. ‘The uncertainty and dark- 
ness, in which the earlier history of Greenland is enveloped, may be 
accounted for, from the circumstance that nobody was formerly al- 
lowed to sail thither without a pass, under forfeiture of his life. The 
eagerness of sailing to Greenland was occasioned by a report, that 
there was a great abundance of gold and silver, and many precious 
stones, and that in former ages some ships brought great treasures 
from thence; but the loss of many vessels, which sailed thither under 
the orders and at the cost of Queen Margaret of Denmark, dis- 
couraged her from venturing other attempts ; and the queen, being 
afterwards engaged in a war with Sweden, had more weighty affairs 
upon her hands than to trouble herself much about Greenland, which 
at last proved the occasion of the total loss of that country. 
