240 DESCRIPTION OF GREENLAND. 



landed, from his own name, Munckenes. This island is in 

 sixty-one degrees twenty minntes of elevation. He set up 

 there the name and arms of the king of Denmark his master, 

 and took his departure on the 2,'2nd of July. But he ran much 

 risk from the violent storms Avliich rose, and from the shock 

 of icebergs, which damaged him so much that it was with diffi- 

 culty that he saved himself on the twenty-eighth of the same 

 month, between two islands, where he cast all his anchors 

 and made fast his vessels to the land, so imjietuous was the 

 storm even in the port. The return of tide left the Danes 

 dried up upon the mud, and the flow, which came ra- 

 pidly, brought them so much ice, that they were in as great 

 danger of perishing there as in open sea, if they had not 

 fortified themselves with great care and trouble. Between 

 these two islands was a large piece of ice, twenty-two fathoms 

 thick, which became detached from the islands and sepai'ated 

 in two ; these two pieces fell from both sides to the bottom 

 of the sea, and stirred up such a tempest in falling, that one 

 of their sloops was very nearly lost. They saw no men in 

 these two islands, but traces and evident marks that there 

 were, or had been some. They found there some mine- 

 rals, and among others some talc, of which they took some 

 tons. There were other islands near these, which appeared 

 inhabited, but the Danes could not get to them because 

 the entrance to them was inaccessible, and so wild that they 

 never saw anything like it before. These islands are in 

 sixty-two degrees twenty minutes, and fifty leagues further 

 on in Christian Strait. Captain Munck called the gulf or 

 strait where he landed Haresunt, which means gulf or strait 

 of hares, from the great number of hares which he found in 

 this island ; and there set up the standard of Christian IV, 

 king of Denmark, which they used to represent thus, (3- 



He left these islands on the ninth of August, and sailed 

 towards the west south-west with a north-west wind, and on 

 the tenth landed on the south coast of the Christian Strait, 



