6o THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



that drain into the estuary St. Lawrence. To quote 

 from the Saga: "When they had sailed a long time 

 they came to a river that flowed out of the land from 

 east to west." It is not unlikely that this river was the 

 Quelle River which enters the St. Lawrence from the 

 southern part of the Kamouraska district. In the Tale 

 of the Greenlanders it is related that Thorwald, when 

 fatally wounded, requested his companions to bury 

 him on a cape that was near by and was to be called 

 Crossness. The account is not very reliable. There is, 

 however, a cape near the Quelle River that bears the 

 same name as the river. The Saga describes the coun- 

 try as heavily wooded, with scarcely an opening, and 

 this is in accord with the conditions of that region. 



The story of the uniped that shot Thorwald, the 

 ditty about that event, and the reference to the Land 

 of the Unipeds are all very strange. It is possible that 

 the ditty was originally composed during Thorfinn's 

 voyage, and, if such is the case, the name may have 

 originated at the same time. It is difficult to explain 

 references to the unipeds here and elsewhere. It is not 

 unlikely that the whole account of the uniped is a 

 myth, an interpolation in the story. Halldor Her- 

 mannsson has drawn attention to an interesting mat- 

 ter in this connection, namely that Cartier had stated 

 that Donnacona had told him in Stadacone that he 

 had come upon a country in which the inhabitants were 



