706 



NORTH AMERICA -NOR WAY. 



tions of the winters of Vinland certainly do not 

 apply to the winters experienced in modern days 

 in that portion of North America. " Such is the 

 goodness of the land, (says Lcif, the son of Eric,) 

 as to show that the docks had no need of pasture; 

 for there were no wintry frosts, and the grass 

 scarce withered." It may, however, be deemed a 

 sufficient explanation of this difficulty, that to 

 persons used to the climate of Iceland and Green- 

 land, the ordinary winter of Massachusetts and 

 Rhode Island would seem mild ; and the cattle of 

 the former region, when brought to the latter, 

 might be capable, even before the introduction of 

 artificial pasturage by agriculture, of subsisting 

 themselves by browsing, like the moose and the 

 deer at the present day. 



The manner in which these accounts have been 

 transmitted to us, though not omni exceptions 

 major, is, upon the whole, satisfactory. Of the 

 authenticity of the manuscripts there is not a 

 shadow of doubt ; of the age of some of them there j 

 is no question. These manuscripts carry back the 

 record to the fourteenth, and even the thirteenth 

 century. The substantial agreement of the accounts 

 in one main tradition, and their difference in cir- 

 cumstantial details, are a sufficient warrant, that 

 they were not, when produced, a wholesale fabri- 

 cation. We have every reason to believe, from 

 internal evidence, that the accounts contained in 

 the existing manuscripts were faithfully compiled 

 from older documents ; from the metrical Sagas ; 

 and from traditions orally handed down in the 

 families of the discoverers. 



That such a discovery should have been made ; 

 so vast, so interesting; that expeditions to explore, 

 to settle, and to evangelize the country should 

 have been undertaken , and that a communication 

 between America on the one hand, and Greenland 

 and Iceland on the other, should have been kept 

 up for three centuries and a half; that written 

 accounts of these very important events should be 

 in existence ; and that the discovery should have 

 been pushed to no greater consequences ; nay, that 

 all effective knowledge of it, after a time, should 

 have perished ; are, it must be admitted, circum- 

 stances somewhat difficult to explain. If it be 

 hard to find a continent, one would think it must 

 be much harder to lose one. When America was 

 discovered by Columbus, the intelligence rung 

 round Europe. The old world seemed to pour 

 itself out upon the new. The discovery by the 

 Northmen, to use a modern phrase, seemed, as far 

 as we can judge, to produce no sensation in the 

 world. It had no effect upon the mind of Europe 

 at large. It led to no vigorous efforts at coloniza- 

 tion ; awoke no spirit of adventure ; occasioned 

 none of those mighty revolutions, which were 

 caused by the discovery of Columbus ; and was 

 before long forgotten. These are difficulties which 

 must be looked in the face. 



Are they sufficiently accounted for by the want of 

 the art of printing ; by the less extensive prevalence 

 of knowledge ; and by the comparative barbarism of 

 the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as contrasted 

 with the kindling intelligence of the beginning of the 

 sixteenth ? Was the attention of the ardent spirits 

 called forth in other quarters ; to the revolutions 

 that were advancing under Norman banners in 

 Apulia and in Sicily; to the magnificent conquest 

 of England by a Norman prince; and, above all, to 

 the great movement of the crusades, which shook 

 Europe to its centre? Again, the Spanish dis- 



coverers, on the first islands, and first portions of 

 the continent which they visited, found the pre- 

 cious metals in abundance. This discovery urged 

 the passion for adventure to madness. Gold and 

 silver were found in heaps. The tale went home 

 of rivers, that flowed over beds of golden sands ; 

 of temples, whose walls blazed with the precious 

 mischief; of captive princes, purchasing their ran- 

 som by halls full of piled ingots. This turned the 

 heads of men in the old country. They grew 

 frantic to get at this gold; and it soon became 

 necessary, in order to avoid the depopulation of 

 Spain, that severe restrictions should be laid 

 on emigration. But avarice was not the only 

 master-passion, which was enkindled. The Span- 

 ish adventurers encountered at the outset a 

 delicious tropical climate, a region inhabited 

 by races which, compared with themselves, weie 

 un warlike and timid, whose civilization had fur- 

 nished many of the arts of luxury and gaudy 

 display, few of those of defence, at least against 

 a mounted, iron-clad enemy, who fought with 

 thunderbolts. Ambition was fired at the thought 

 of achieving the conquest of vast realms, by a 

 trifling expense of the resources of European 

 warfare. The career of the Cortez and Pizarro 

 was enough to ruin a generation of young men, 

 to corrupt the imaginations, and unsettle the judg- 

 ments of men for a century. Far otherwise the 

 case with the Northmen. They landed, at best, 

 on an inhospitable coast ; inhabited by a warlike 

 race of savages ; they themselves had no fire-arms ; 

 and the country, and those who occupied it, of- 

 fered little to awaken cither ambition or avarice. 

 At a much later period, we witness the effect of 

 this diversity in the character of the two portion? 

 of the continent, upon the conduct both of gov- 

 ernments and individuals. Newfoundland, we 

 know certainly, was discovered by Cabot, for 

 England, a few years after the West Indies were 

 discovered by Columbus for Spain. And yet, 

 though the example of Spain, in turning her 

 almost undivided attention to her new American 

 acquisitions, was before the eyes of England, she 

 neglected hers for three quarters of a century ; 

 and, at last, did little more than extend a parsi- 

 monious countenance to the feeble attempts of 

 private companies to colonize the continent. 



NORWAY, (a.) By the last census of Norway, 

 taken in 1835, the total number of inhabitants was 

 1,194,827. In 1825 it was 1,051,318, or, accord- 

 ing to other statements, 1,050,132; the increase, 

 therefore, during 10 years was 13 6 per cent., or 

 about 1^ per cent, annually. The total population 

 in 1835 consisted of 585,381 males, and 609,446 

 females; the ratio of the two sexes being as 100 

 to 104. The rural population in the same year 

 amounted to 1,065,825, of whom 523,922 were 

 males, and 541,903 females, being in the proportion 

 of 100 to 103. The population of the towns was 

 129,002, of whom 61,459 were males, and 67,543 

 were females, their relative proportion being 100 

 to 109. In 1825 the rural population was 935,855, 

 and the population of the towns 115,463; conse- 

 quently, the increase of the former during the 10 

 years was 14 per cent., and of the latter only 11 

 per cent. 



The number of considerable towns in Norway is 

 small, regarding as such every town with more 

 than 3000 inhabitants. There are not more than 

 11 towns in this class, the population of which will 

 be seen in the following table : 



