164 THE NORMANS IN GREENLAND. 



especially of those interesting people on the northern shores of 

 Baffin's Bay, who were named by Sir John Boss the " Arctic High- 

 landers," are topics serving to illustrate one of the numerous points 

 which will engage the attention of the Arctic Expedition, and, at 

 the same time they may throw some passing light on questions 

 in Arctic physical geography which still remain unsolved. 



Until within the last nine centuries the great continent of Green- 

 land was, so far as our knowledge extends, untenanted by a single 

 human being — the bears and reindeer held undisputed possession. 

 There was a still more remote period when fine forests of exogenous 

 trees clothed the hill-sides of Disco, when groves waved, in a 

 milder climate, over Banks Island and Melville Island, and when 

 corals and sponges flourished in the now frozen waters of Barrow's 

 Strait. Of this period we know nothing ; but it is at least certain 

 that when Erik the Bed planted his little colony of hardy Norse- 

 men at the mouth of one of the Greenland fiords, in the end of the 

 tenth century, he apparently found the land far more habitable 

 than it is to-day. 



For three centuries and a half the Norman colonies of Greenland 

 continued to flourish ; upwards of 300 small farms and villages 

 were built along the shores of the fiords from the island of Disco to 

 Cape Farewell ' (for the persevering Danish explorer Graah has 

 truly conjectured and Mr. Major has clearly proved that the East 

 and "West Bygds w^ere both on the west coast), 2 and Greenland 

 became the see of a Bishop. The ancient Icelandic and Danish 

 accounts of the^e transactions are corroborated by the interesting 

 remains which may be seen in the Scandinavian museum at Copen- 

 hagen. During the whole of this period no indigenous race was 

 seen in that land, and no one appealed to dispute the possession of 

 Greenland with the Norman colony. 3 A curious account of a 

 voyage is extant, during which the Normans reached a latitude 

 north of Cape York ; yet there is no mention of any signs of a 

 strange race. The Normans continued to be the sole tenants of 

 Greenland, at least until the middle of the fourteenth century. 



But Thorwald, the boastful Viking, who sailed away west from 

 Greenland and discovered America, 4 did meet with a strange race 

 on the shorts of Yinland and Markland, which probably correspond 

 with modern Labrador. Here he found men of short stature, whom 

 he contemptuously called Skrcellings (chips or parings), and some 

 of whom he wantonly killed. Here, then, is the first mention of 



Egcde. 2 Graab's 'Greenland,' Inlrod. and p. 163. 



3 Cravitz, i. p. 257. * Ibid. 



