CHAPTER IV 



What Nature has writ with her lusty wit 



Is worded so wisely and kindly, 

 That whoever has dipped in her manuscript 



Must up and follow her blindly. HENLEY. 



The variety and beauty of the flora of Greenland. Some salient 

 features of Arctic vegetation. Arctic and tropical vegetation con- 

 trasted. The Arctic and the Antarctic. Lichens and colour in 

 nature. 



A VI SIT to Greenland in the summer affords 

 a very incomplete idea of a country which is 

 usually associated in one's mind with its winter 

 aspect when, except in the more southern districts, 

 the kayak is replaced by the sledge and all com- 

 munication with the outer world is suspended. The 

 isolation has compensations. A Danish friend who 

 passes most winters in Greenland told me that he 

 watches the last ship leave in September with a 

 sense of relief; it means at least six months of 

 peace and quiet. A few brief descriptions of 

 typical scenes may serve to dispel the popular 

 fallacy that even in the summer this Arctic land 

 offers few attractions as a place of residence. John 

 Davis in the latter part of the sixteenth century 

 described Greenland as a land of desolation, and 

 added: 'The irksome noise of the ice and the 

 loathsome view of the shore bred strange conceits 

 among us.' Shelley's lines, 



From the most gloomy glens 

 Of Greenland's sunless clime, 



