A GREENLAND CEMETERY. 



BY JAMES D. DEWELL. 



WITH Melville Bay as the ob- 

 jective point, I boarded the steam- 

 ship Miranda July 7. 1894. After 

 many delays caused by fog, col- 

 lision with an iceberg, and striking 

 a hidden reef, we anchored in the 

 little harbor of Sukkertoppen 

 (Sugar-loaf), Greenland, in early 

 August. Sukkertoppen is a set- 

 tlement of four hundred Eskimos, 

 under the Danish flag, a race with- 

 out a history or a nationality, a 

 people of Asiatic caste, whose pro- 

 genitors were probably from a warmer clime. How came this 

 peculiar people to inhabit a frozen region can only be sur- 

 mised. The belief is that in ages past their ancestors were 

 forced north by tribal wars, probably before the date, of the 

 English Channel, and 

 thence through some 

 emergency reached 

 the north coast of 

 Greenland, when that 

 portion of the earth's 

 surface Avas more tem- 

 perate than now. As 

 the cycles of time 

 rolled along, and the 

 ice-fiend claimed pos- No . ,._ CEMEr ^ y LOOKING NORTH _ 



