NA TURE 



57 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1877 



DANISH GREENLAND 



Danish Greenland ; its People audits Products. By Dr. 

 Henry Rink. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown, F.L S. 

 With Illustrations by the Eskimo and a Map. (London : 

 Henry S. King and Co., 1877.) 



THERE is a strange fascination about Greenland, 

 which may be partly owing to the mystery that 

 shrouds its early history, — partly to its being an almost 

 Arctic country, the scanty population of which seems to 

 furnish an example of a nation in the enjoyment of a very 

 primitive culture ; and partly because it seems very prob- 

 able that it was from it started the voyagers who were 

 the first discoverers of what is now called America. 



Our knowledge of the early history of Greenland is 

 limited to what we can gather from the Icelandic sagas 

 or popular tales, and from these we find that about the 

 year 986 an Icelander called Erik the Red, who had been 

 outlawed, sailed to the west to look for some land which 

 had some years previously been sighted by Gunbjdrn, the 

 son of Ulf Kraku, another Icelander who had once been 

 driven far westward by a very fierce storm. Erik found 

 the land, made a two winters' stay thereon, giving names 

 to many places, and returning to Iceland called this new 

 country Greenland, because, said he, people would sooner 

 be induced to go thither in case it had a good name. 



This first colonisation of Greenland seems at the 

 time to have been fairly successful, and several ruins 

 are still to be found which throw a light on the habits 

 of these seafaring people. The present Eskimo station, 

 Igaliko, situated on an isthmus between two fjords, is 

 thought to have been the ancient residence of Erik. One 

 of Erik's friends, named Herjulf, had a son called Bjarni, 

 a promising youth, and very fond of travelling abroad. 

 One year he would spend in Iceland, another with his 

 father in Greenland. Wishing, however, to spend one 

 Yule-tide with his father, he set sail for Greenland, where 

 his father was, with a crew who had never been in the 

 Greenland Ocean before, and the consequence seems to 

 have been that he found himself after many days near a 

 country covered with wood, which was certainly not 

 Greenland, and turning his back upon it to hasten to find 

 his parent, he succeeded in landing at the very spot 

 where his father lived. It is probable that during this 

 voyage he had discovered the tract of country stretching 

 from Connecticut to Newfoundland. 



The news of Bj ami's venturesome voyage spread to 

 Iceland and to Norway, and Leif, the son of Erik the 

 Red, bought his ship, and set sail for the new country, on 

 which they landed, and which, from finding on it a species 

 of " fox-grapes," they called Vinland. Returning the 

 next year to Greenland, it was no wonder that Vinland 

 was all the talk, and Thorvald, about 1002, went to settle 

 there and finally had a battle with the natives, in which he 

 was killed. This Vinland was probably the present Massa- 

 chusetts. Half a century later tidings from the Green- 

 lard colonies suddenly became rare, but in 1126 the 

 then pope sent them a bishop, the ruins of whose church 

 are still pointed out, and about 1261 the Greenlanders 

 became subjects of Norway. From this date to 

 Vol.. xvii. — No. 431 



1450 tidings of the colonists, stories of their doings, 

 and records of their misfortunes, came less and less 

 frequently to Europe. The very sailing route passed 

 into oblivion, and the country was only again re- dis- 

 covered in 1585 by John Davis, whose name will be for ever 

 remembered in connection with the Straits also discovered 

 by him. Another century-and-a-half passed away before 

 the present European stations in Greenland were founded 

 by the well-known Danish missionary, Hans Egede, 

 who in 1 72 1 landed on an island at the mouth of the 

 Godthaab-fjord and founded a regular colony. From 

 then until now, with many a vicissitude ; an epidemic 

 of small-pox in 1734, a total interruption with Den- 

 mark (1807-18 14) on account of the war ; the colonies 

 have struggled on. The trade was for some part of 

 the former century made a private monopoly, but in 

 order to keep up the commerce, the government was 

 finally obliged to take it in hand, and since 1774 it has 

 continued to be a royal monopoly. Following the steps of 

 the extending trade, the missionary institutions have 

 gradually incorporated the whole population into Christian 

 communities. 



Dr. Rink's book tells us in a very succinct though 

 most interesting manner, of the results of the European 

 transactions thus carried on in Greenland, for now over a 

 century, and he describes the present state, and hints at 

 the future prospects of the population. More than this, he 

 gives us in well-written chapters, an account of the 

 configuration and general physical features of this almost 

 frozen up island, he tells of its " inland ice," and of the 

 origin of the " floating icebergs." We read of the tempera- 

 ture, prevailing winds, the wonderful changeableness of 

 its weather, and we find here a rhume of all that is 

 known about its lakes and streams, its mysterious fjords, 

 and of its great fields of drifting ice. Nor is the natural 

 history of the country overlooked, for we have a chapter 

 on its geological and mineral products. Of these latter 

 cyolite appears to be the only one that has become a 

 regular article of trade, about 10,000 tons thereof being 

 exported each year. There are also chapters on its plants 

 and animals, with special ones on the capture of whales 

 and seals, and on the Greenland fisheries. 



From an Eskimo point of view the commercial import- 

 ance of the seal and whale fisheries is very great. The 

 flesh and blubber of these animals not only supply the 

 Greenlander with nutritious food, but also provide him 

 with heat and light. The sealskins too afford material 

 for clothes, boats, and tents, and whaleskin called 

 " matak," yields a favourite article of diet It may give 

 some idea of the vast numbers of these animals killed 

 yearly to summarise the average annual catch as follows : 

 Of Phoca foittda, 51,000 ; of P. vttulina, 2,000 ; of P. 

 groenlandica, 33,000 ; of P. barbata, 1,000 ; of Cystophora 

 cristata, 3,000 ; and of narwhals, white whales, and 

 walruses nearly 1,000. The right whale has nearly dis- 

 appeared and the mean annual catch of the "humpback" 

 whale is scarcely over two. 



The most important fisheries in addition appear to be 

 those of the cod fish, the halibut, and the capelin. 



Perhaps there was not much to be said about the man- 

 ners and customs of the people in the olden time ; the 

 change in religion seems to have very early modified the 

 social condition of the people, and this portion of Dr. 



