208 DESCRIPTION OF GREENLAND. 



of gold, silver, and precious stones ; or perhaps this passage 

 in Job made some impression on their mind : " Aiirum ab 

 aquilone venit." I will mention what the same chronicle 

 relates on this subject. It states that some time ago mer- 

 chants returned from this voyage with vast treasures ; and it 

 says also that in the time of St. Olaus, king of Norway, the 

 mariners of Fricsland undertook the same voyage with the 

 same result, and they were overtaken by a violent storm, which 

 cast them on the rocks of this coast, and they were obliged 

 to take refuge in certain insecure ports. It adds, that having 

 hazarded a descent, they saw rather near the shore some miser- 

 able looking huts hollowed out in the ground, and around these 

 cabins heaps of iron ore, in which a quantity of gold and silver 

 was shining ; this tempted them to go and take some of it. 

 And each took as much of it as he could carry away. But 

 as they returned to their vessels, they saw coming out from 

 these covered holes deformed men as hideous as devils, with 

 bows and slings and large dogs following them. The ter- 

 ror that seized these sailors obliged them to double their 

 speed, that they might save themselves and their burdens : 

 but unfortunately one idler amongst them fell into the hands 

 of these savages, who tore him in pieces in a moment before 

 his companions' eyes. The Danish Chronicle goes on to say, 

 that the country is full of riches, from which the account has 

 arisen that Saturn hid his treasures there, and that it is only 

 inhabited by devils. 



There is a chapter in the Icelandic Chronicle entitled, 

 Road and Passage from Norivay to Greenland. The text 

 runs thus. The true route to Greenland, according to what 

 the well-informed pilots tell us who were born in Greenland 

 or have come from thence a short time since, is this : From 

 Nordstaten Sundmur in Norway, bearing straight towards 

 the west as far as Horensunt on the eastern coast of Iceland, 

 the navigation is seven days. From Suofuels Jokel, which 

 is a sulphur mountain in Iceland, to Greenland, the shortest 



