2 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



thoroughly to appreciate the courage of these 

 pioneers of colonisation. An unusually good re- 

 presentation of a Viking's ship, which shows the 

 rigging more clearly than on the ships depicted on 

 the Bayeux Tapestry, may be seen on a large 

 incised slab of limestone in the Museum at the 

 famous Hanseatic town of Visby in the Island of 

 Gothland. 



Many farms were established by the colonists 

 and stocked with cattle brought from Iceland. 

 Cattle, especially sheep, are still kept in the more 

 southern parts of Greenland, but in the northern 

 districts, where sledges are used in the winter and 

 dogs are essential, it is practically impossible, apart 

 from the difficulty of providing food, to keep 

 domestic animals. A few Danish residents keep 

 goats for the luxury of having fresh milk, but 

 these are a cause of anxiety because of the difficulty 

 of protecting them against the attacks of hungry 

 dogs. South of Holsteinsborg (the southernmost 

 place where sledge-dogs are kept see Map A^ 

 H) goats and chickens are common. The dogs 

 which are kept in South Greenland for the sake 

 of their skins are said to be very tame as compared 

 with the sledge-dogs of the north. 



The discovery of a Runic stone a little to the 

 north of lat. 72 N. 1 affords evidence of the long 



1 A fuller account of this and other facts connected with the 

 history of Greenland is given by Sir Clements Markham in The 

 Lands of Silence, Cambridge, 1921. For further details the 

 reader is referred to papers in the Meddelelser om Grjnland and 

 to the recently-published book (in Danish) entitled Grfnland, 

 Copenhagen, 1921. 



