10 HISTORY OF 



colour, and quite naked. Upon a nearer approach, 

 however, they are found replete with many diffe- 

 rent veins of coloured stone, here and there spread 

 over with a little earth, and a scanty portion of 

 grass and heath. The internal parts of the coun- 

 try are still more desolate and deterring. In wan- 

 dering through these solitudes, some plains appear 

 covered with ice, that, at the first glance, seem to 

 promise the traveller an easy journey.* But these 

 are even more formidable and more impassable 

 than the mountains themselves, being cleft with 

 dreadful chasms, and every-where abounding with 

 pits that threaten certain destruction. The seas 

 that surround these inhospitable coasts are still 

 more astonishing, being covered with flakes of 

 floating ice, that spread like extensive fields, or 

 that rise out of the water like enormous moun- 

 tains. These, which are composed of materials 

 as clear and transparent as glass, t assume many 

 strange and fantastic appearances. Some of them 

 look like churches or castles, with pointed turrets ; 

 some like ships in full sail ; and people have often 

 given themselves the fruitless toil to attempt pi- 

 loting the imaginary vessels into harbour. There 

 are still others that appear like large islands, with 

 plains, valleys, and hills, which often rear their 

 heads two hundred yards above the level of the 

 sea j and although the height of these be amaz- 

 ing, yet their depth beneath is still more so ; some 

 of them being found to sink three hundred fa- 

 thoms under water. 



* Crantz's History of Greenland, p. 22. . f Ibid. p. 27. 



