1в5 



Also the southern Eskimo on the west coast, who are 

 under Danish dominion, live in tolerably isolated groups, not 

 only separated into Northerners and Southerners, but within 

 each of these chief divisions, into small communities which are 

 determined by the natural boundaries. The large ice-fjords 

 cleft by the swift current, the long steep stretches of coast, 

 where it is often impossible to find a single landing-place, the 

 enormous masses of polar ice, which during most of the year 

 shut out the whole east coast, and are by the current driven 

 around Cape Farewell up along the west coast*) — all this 

 makes it difficult and dangerous for them to undertake long 

 voyages. Therefore the inhabitants of the different districts 

 have but seldom any opportunity of meeting or talking with 

 each other, and they rarely intermarry. At the colony of 

 Holstensborg (66° 56' N. lat.) the communication with the 

 neighboring colonies is especially difficult on account of the 

 long fjords where the current is very swift and through which 

 the icebergs float from the inland ice to the sea. By this 

 colony passes the dividing line between North and South Green- 

 land, a division which also holds for such matters as the fact 

 that the North Greenlanders drive dogs on the ice in the winter, 

 whereas the South Greenlanders do not keep any dogs**) and 

 do not travel very much on the ice. — Farther north again 

 Disko Bay is separated from Oommannaq Fjord by a pen- 

 insula covered with wild mountains which extends out 45 miles 

 from the main body of the land. Oommannaq is again sepa- 

 rated from the northernmost colony Upernawik by a long 

 steep coast-line, where it is difficult to find a landing-place 



•) H. Rink: Danish Greenland (London 1877), pp. 73-74 - Grönland (1857) 

 Vol. 11, pp. 122—123. — G. Holm in "Meddelelser om Grönland" Vol. VI, 

 pp. 181 — 190. 

 **) In 188.5 the team of sledge-dogs farthest south were fonnd at the trading- 

 place Sdrfanfptfiq (66° 50) a little south of Holstensborg. Cf. "Med- 

 delelser om Grönland", Vol. VIII, p. 40. —The inhabitants of Ammassdlik 

 on the east coast also use teams of dogs. 



