32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IO7 



upon which there was a great number of animals, and this cape 

 looked as if it were one cake of dung, by reason of the animals which 

 lay there at night." It is more likely that this was a bird rookery, the 

 appearance of which is often described in these terms. Thus Stearns 

 (1884, pp. 250-251) says of Shag Rocks on the southern coast of 

 Labrador near St. Mary Islands where cormorants (or shags) bred 

 in numbers : 



At a distance these rocks present the appearance of being covered with snow, 

 but a nearer approach shows that this is a covering of guano from the continual 

 droppings of the birds; while the tops of the rocks are thickly embedded with 

 an accumulation of guano from the same cause, firmly stamped down with the 

 continual pattering of numberless feet. 



"They now arrived again at Streamfirth, where they found great 

 abundance of all those things of which they stood in need." Again the 

 Streamfirth episode and all that happened between the departure of 

 the colonists from Wineland and their arrival in Greenland is omitted 

 by the Flat Island Book with the exception of one or two occurrences 

 which appear, not in this connection, but in describing a supposed 

 earlier expedition of Thorvald. 



This introduces us to one of the most perplexing chapters in the 

 Wineland sagas, the circumstances surrounding the death of this 

 brother of Leif , The Saga of Eric the Red gives the story as follows : 



Karlsefni then set out [from Steamfirtli] with one ship, in search of Thorhall 

 the Huntsman, but the greater part of the company remained behind. They 

 sailed to the northward around Keelness, and then bore to the westward, having 

 land to the larboard. The country there was a wooded wilderness, as far as 

 they could see, with scarcely an open space; and when they had journeyed a 

 considerable distance, a river flowed down from the east toward the west. They 

 sailed into the mouth of the river, and lay to by the southern bank. 



It happened one morning that Karlsefni and his companions discovered in an 

 open space in the woods above them, a speck, which seemed to shine toward 

 them, and they shouted at it ; it stirred, and it was a Uniped, who skipped down 

 to the bank of the river by which they were lying. Thorvald, a son of Eric 

 the Red, was sitting at the helm, and the Uniped shot an arrow into his in- 

 wards. Thorvald drew out the arrow, and exclaimed: "There is fat around my 

 paunch ; we have hit upon a fruitful country, and yet we are not like to get 

 much profit of it." Thorvald died soon after from this wound. Then the Uniped 

 ran away back toward the north, Karlsefni and his men pursued him, and saw 

 him from time to time. The last they saw of him, he ran down into a creek. 

 Then they turned back; whereupon one of the men recited this ditty: 



Eager, our men, up hill down dell, 



Hunted a Uniped; 

 Hearken, Karlsefni, while they tell 



How swift the quarry fled ! 



