HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA. 293 



impassable barriers of ice, which cut off all intercourse with them sub- 

 sequent to the close of the fourteenth century, and the Tery existence 

 of the long lost region became a matter of doubt. 



From time to time, however the subject was revived. Many a Norse 

 legend and poem celebrated the charms of the Hesperian region 

 which was fabled to lie embattled within the impassable Arctic barriers, 

 clothed in the luxuriant verdure of a perpetual spring. In Iceland,, 

 where the old Norse colonists had maintained their ground, the faith 

 in the ancient Greenland colonies remained unshaken ; and received 

 confirmation from various indications of the lost settlement, as well as 

 from the definite traditions current among the Islanders, and narrated 

 in their Sagas. 



Among older memorials of Greenland and the mythic Vinland, it 

 is recorded that towards the middle of the seventeenth century, an 

 oar was drifted on the coast of Iceland bearing this inscription in 

 runic characters : oft var ek dasa dur ek dro thick. Oft was 

 I weary when I drew thee. To this the poet, James Montgomery, 

 refers in the fourth canto of his Greenland, when following the later 

 route of the Moravian Brethren in their generous exile : — 



" Here, while in peace the weary pilgrims rest, 

 Turn we our Toyage from the new-found west, 

 Sail up the current of departed time, 

 And seek along its banks that vanished clime, 

 By ancient Scalds in Runic verse renowned. 

 Now like old Babylon no longer found. 

 " Oft was 1 weary when I toiled at thee ;" 

 This on an oar abandoned to the sea 

 Some hand had gravem From what foundered boat 

 It fell ; how long on ocean's waves afloat ; 

 Who marked it with that melancholy line : • 



No record tells. Greenland, such fate was thine : 

 Whate'er thou wast, of thee remains no more 

 Than a brief legend on a foundling oar ; 

 And he whose song would now revive thy fame, 

 Grasps but the shadow of a mighty name." 



Repeated unsuccessful attempts had been made by Norwegian, 

 Danish, and English voyagers, at the time this poem was published, 

 to effect a passage through the icy barriers around the east coast of 

 Greenland; and it was not till 1822 that the enterprise of the distin- 

 guished Arctic voyager, Captain Scoresby, was rewarded with success. 



