190 H. P. STEENSBY. 
so that it may have. been another group of Indians — perhaps Algonquins 
— who visited Hôp. 
Moreover, that the numerous boats of the Skrælings continually 
came from the south excellently agrees with the anthropogeographical 
conditions as we know them from these parts at a later period. The 
northern limit for the maize-cultivating Indian tribes, and at the same 
time for the more densely settled and peopled regions, reached from 
the big Canadian lakes along the northern side of St. Lawrence valley 
to somewhat east of the present site of Quebec, or about as far as Isle 
d’Orleans. 
Here the boundary curves fairly sharply southwards through the 
country as far as Kennebec River in Maine, where the indigenous Indian 
cultivation of plants once more reached the sea. 
North and north-east of the stated line lived hunting-tribes, small 
in number, who, at any rate as regards later times, were principally of 
Algonquin origin. These Indians lived in a similar way as the other 
Canadian forest-tribes. They were inland-people who, in contradistinc- 
tion to the Eskimos, were only to a slight degree bound to the sea-coast. 
They used their bark-boats for sailing on the rivers and lakes. They visited 
the sea-coast only during a part of the summer, if anywhere there was 
access to specially favourable fishing and seal hunting. The Indians, 
on the contrary, were not navigators proper, as the subarctic Eskimos 
were, even if there were degrees in their navigating ability. Thus, as 
might be expected, the old Newfoundlanders belonged to the most 
сарае. 1 
Even Storm paid attention to this feature in the material culture of 
the Indians north of the maize regions, that their main hunting seasons 
were in the autumn and winter, whilst the season for voyaging and 
trading was the spring, which observation by Storm was mentioned in 
connection with the fact that it was during the spring that the Skrælings 
came to Hôp. 
Meanwhile one dare not conclude from this that the Skrælings, 
because they came in the spring and had furs to sell, were not plant- 
cultivating Indians. Also amongst these tribes the men were keen hun- 
ters; agriculture was a summer livelihood, which in most cases was the 
task of the women only, but which, even so, gave these tribes a consider- 
able superiority in numbers and power. 
These comments, to be sure, afford no proof of this or that definite 
circumstance. But — provided our localization of Höp, Straumey, etc. 
is correct — these comments show that the account of the saga agrees 
as well as we had reason to expect with the anthropo-geographical con- 
ditions in those regions. 
We understand why the Skrælings cr Indians came to H6p by sea 
— that is to say by the St. Lawrence River — and not by the tributary, 
1 Cf. Waitz L.c. р. 97—98. 
