The Icelandic Colonization of Greenland. 219 
previously mentioned (page 136) were found, with the Eskimoe arrow- 
points sticking in them. A farm has stood on the same spot, on which 
a church and churchyard have most likely stood. 
At the head of Ameragdla the sites of a big farm with the remains 
of a church and churchyard besides stables ete. lie, near the big head- 
land Atlärsarfik, and up in the mountains a few sites are still seen in 
places, where the Norsemen no doubt had their out-farms during the 
summer, even further up country, the remains of huts are still seen 
near lakes and rivers, where they lived for the sake of salmon fishing, 
being the same case up in the mountains near the inland-ice where 
one finds shooting walls, behind which they lurked waiting for the 
reindeer, also the huts in which they lived; the latter were sometimes 
built dome shaped, only of stones, resembling the "Fjårborgir” (sheep 
pens) in Iceland. These huts are still used by the Greenlanders on 
their hunting expeditions. Perhaps it is the possession of these hunting 
grounds which gave special occasion for the conflicts between the Norse- 
men and the “Skrællings”. Here was a territory in which both of them 
were interested. 
The grounds south and north of Ameragdla’s head possessed specially 
good pasture — beautiful valleys with thicket and grass, salmon in the 
rivers and reindeer in the mountains. In a south easterly direction from 
the head of the fiord there is a specially good region for reindeer hunting. 
The people undertook long hunting expeditions on foot to this place, 
from the dwelling places in Godthaabsfiord. With heavy burdens, tents, 
cooking utensils ete. on their backs, and their kayaks on their heads, 
men, women and children started off, often from the head of Pisigsar- 
fik, but sometimes also from Ameragdla, so as to enjoy tent-life and the 
joys of hunting for a few weeks in this magnificent country, swarming 
with game. It is maintained that one of the best hunting grounds т 
Greenland Jay near a lake; here are also the ruins of “the biggest Norse 
farm in the western settlement”; but the road to it crosses a river that 
is often swollen, which must be traversed by a fleet of kayaks tied to- 
gether. 
In the Austmannadal (1. e. Eastmens-valley) through which Frıp- 
TJOF NANSEN came from his wandering straight across the inland-ice, 
and through which Major Paars, in the time of Egede, rode up to the 
inland-ice so as to proceed across it to “the eastern settlement”, which 
he and everyone else believed to be on Greenland’s east coast. Na- 
turally this expedition failed, as it had not been properly arranged. 
The rivers from the inland-ice convey a great deal of clay, and 
the inner end of Ameragdla is filled by a delta which is dry during ebb, 
and which causes great difficulty in approaching the farms in its vici- 
nity. Two of them shall now be mentioned amongst those in Ameragdla, 
near Exaluit on the south side. They lie in beautiful surroundings below 
a big glacier fence, which Thorhallesen compares to “the Copenhagen 
