DESCRIPTION OF GREENLAND. 195 



Davis' Gulf, and that they might have been Americans, or 

 perhaps that they were the aborigines of New Greenland, 

 which the Danes discovered in the reign of Christian IV, 

 king of Denmark, and of whom I shall speak hereafter. He 

 thinks that they were on the confines of Old Greenland, 

 which the Norwegians inhabited, and they occupied one part 

 of Vestrebug before Eric the Red seized upon the other. 

 The Danish Chronicle makes the same observation in the 

 following terms : — viz., that the whole of Greenland is one 

 hundred times larger than the portion which the Norwegians 

 possessed, that it is inhabited by a variety of races, and that 

 these races are governed by different lords, of whom the 

 Norwegians never knew anything. 



The Icelandic Chronicle speaks in different ways of the 

 fertility of this land, according to the different histories of 

 which it is composed. It states in one place that finer wheat 

 grows there than can be found in any other part of the world, 

 and oaks so vigorous and strong, that they bear acorns the 

 size of an apple. In another place it says, that nothing 

 whatever that is sown will grow in Greenland, on account of 

 the cold, and that the inhabitants do not know what bread 

 is. This agrees in some measure with the Danish Chronicle, 

 which says, that when Eric the Red entered this country he 

 lived entirely by fishing, in consequence of the sterility of 

 the ground. This same Danish Chronicle, however, states 

 in another place, that the successors of Eric, who went far- 

 ther into the country after his death, found among the moun- 

 tains, fertile lands, meadows, and rivers, which Eric had not 

 discovered ; and the Icelandic Chronicle, which contradicts 

 itself, is not to be believed in the statement it made before, 

 that nothing grew in Greenland on account of the cold. The 

 reason it assigns makes me doubt what it says ; for it is cer- 

 tain that that part of Greenland which the Norwegians inha- 

 bited, is of the same elevation as Lapland, which is the most 

 fertile province of Sweden, and it is certain a great deal of 



