NATIVES OX THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND. L8*5 



many ruins and runic inscriptions behind them, and the Skroellings 

 have taken their place. The modern Danish Eskimos have detailed 

 traditions of the wars between their ancestors and the Kabluna, 

 which are represented in the curious woodcuts brought home by 

 Sir Leopold McClintock, and have since been published by Dr. 

 Eink, who, I understand, is of opinion that these Eskimo traditions 

 arc founded on historical facts. 



But it is the northern, and not the southern, migration of the 

 Arctic Highlanders that now demands our attentive consideration. 

 "We here approach the very confines of the great unknown polar 

 region, and we can discover indications of the existence of a polar 

 population up to the very threshold of the Terra Incognita. Petersen 

 tells us that he saw ruins of stone iglus to the northward of lati- 

 tude 79° n., which were evidently upwards of two centuries old ; 

 and the runner of a sledge was picked up beyond the Humboldt 

 Glacier. Dr. Bessels found Eskimo remains still further north. 

 Here, then, are the traces of wanderers coming south from the Polar 

 region. Clavering, in 1823, met with two families in the most 

 northern part of East Greenland, who must have come from the 

 north, and have wandered completely round the still unknown 

 northern shores of the great glacier-bearing continent of Greenland. 1 



These people had wandered away, or died out, when the Ger- 

 man Expedition visited the same part of the coast in 1869-70, 

 but numerous remains of their sojourn were found, consisting of 

 graves, and iglus or huts. 2 Much farther south, on the east coast 

 of Greenland, Captain Graah, in 1829, found several places in- 

 habited; and he gives a very interesting account 3 of these East- 

 landers, as he called them, who in 1830 numbered not more than 

 480 souls, in twelve different localities along the coast, from the 

 Danebrog Islands to Cape Farewell. The Eastlanders also came 

 from the north, and not from the west side round Cape Farewell. 



There is thus sufficient proof that people have reached the easl 

 coast of Gieenland from the north, and, consequently, thai they 

 have wandered for many hundreds of miles over the unknown area. 

 It is certain that their remains will be found, and it' there arc 

 polynias of open water, as at the north end of Baffin Bay, it is pro- 

 liable that there are still inhabitants at the North Pole or near it. 



' We may infer thai they did not come from (Ik; smith, for the Mime rei 



thai the American Eskimo have never gone north to the Parrj islands. The 

 East Greenland coast, from the Danebrog islands to Hudson's " Hold with Hope," 

 blocked up with eternal ice that no human being could esJ t there, certainly 

 none would wander there, from tin- mere genial south. 

 -' Bee 'German Arctic Expedition ' of 1869 70, chapter xiv. 



Narrative of an Expedition to the Bast Coasl of Greenland,' by Capt, 

 W. A. Graah (Murray, 1837), pp. 1 II 124. 



