DALAGER'S JOl'UNKY IN 1751. 7 



or under his direction, we never found him attempting to cross the 

 country, but always to work laboriously round Cape Farewell. 

 Soon after this the expanse of the inland ice over the interior seems 

 to have been well known, for Cranz gives us a lucid description of 

 it; and Otho Fabricius, the celebrated naturalist and philologist, 

 who was in the country about the same period, describes, in his 

 • Fauna Groenlandica,' published in Copenhagen in 1780, the 

 interior in these words (page 4) : " Interioribus ob plagam gla- 

 cialem continuam inhabitabilibus." 



2. Dalagers Journey in 1751. — The Danish settlement of Fredriks- 

 haab, situated in lat. 60° x., and long. 50° \v. of Greenwich, was 

 founded in 1742 by a Danish merchant, Jakob Severin 1 — the trade 

 of Greenland not being then, as it is now, a strict monopoly of the 

 Government. The first traders were Gelmeyden and Lars Dalager, 

 men of much energy and rather celebrated in the simple annals of 

 Greenland. Lars appears to have been the author of a work on 

 Greenland, 2 which I have not seen, though there are quotations 

 from it, and from his private letters, both in the works of Cranz and 

 Saabye on Greenland. From the former of these we derive our 

 information regarding this enterprising attempt to penetrate to the 

 interior of the country. As it was one of the first, it probably yet 

 stands alone as one of the most interesting and energetic of all the 

 attempts which succeeded it. He informs us that on the 28th 3 of 

 August, 1751, he sent the great boat to search for firewood, north 

 of the "Iceblink," 4 and a day's journey north of Freclrikshaab, 

 while he followed in his hunting-boat. A Greenlander had, in the 

 preceding month, pursued his game so high in the country that he 

 could see, as he said, the mountains of the ancient " Kablunaks," or 

 Europeans, who had in the middle ages settled in South Greenland. 

 Induced by this intelligence, he determined to seize the present 

 opportunity of attempting a passage to the east side. On the 2nd 

 of September, accompanied by the Greenlander, the Greenlander's 

 daughter, and three other natives, he set out on his tour from a 

 bay on the south of the " Iceblink." They tied their bag of 

 provisions and. their furs to sleep in together, and gave them to the 

 girl to carry. The rest of the party took each a little skin kajak or 

 Greenland boat on his head, and a musket on his shoulder, and in 



1 Severin was the founder of several other settlements. His name is perpe- 

 tuated in " Jakobshavn," a settlement on the southern shores of Disco Hay. 



2 ' GriJnlandske relationcr, indeholdende Gr5nlandeTD.es liv og levnet, deres 

 skikke og vedtagtcr, saint temperament pg BUpei'stitioncr ; tillige noglo korlo 

 reflexioner over missionen, sammenskrivet v< <1 Fredlikshaab's Colonic i Grdn- 

 land af Lars Dalager, Kjobmand.' 



* " Old style," 1 presume. 4 A projecting glacier in lat. 62° 30' N. 



