28 WHO FIRST SAW THE LABRADOR COAST? 



had last seen, which, as [ have said, was probabl}^ our 

 Newfoundland. Here they cast anchor and went qri 

 shore, for their voyage was not the search of a son after 

 his father, but a decided exploring expedition. They 

 found the country as Biarne had described it, full of ice 

 mountains, desolate, and its shores, covered with large 

 flat stones. Leif, therefore, called it ' Helluland ' (the 

 stony land)." 



Here again we should differ from Kohl as to Leif's 

 first landfall. A southwest course would naturally carry 

 him to the Labrador coast, while the description — " full 

 of ice mountains, desolate, and its shores covered with 

 large flat stones" — well describes the barren, rock-bound, 

 treeless coast of Labrador, in distinction from the much 

 lower, wooded coast of Newfoundland. Moreover, St. 

 John's, Newfoundland, lies nearly due south of the 

 southern extremity of Greenland. 



While it is to be doubted whether Biarne ever went 

 south of Newfoundland, we see no reason for dis- 

 believing the conclusions of Rafn and Kohl, that the 

 followers of Biarne, Thorwald and Thorfinn Karlsefne, 

 became familiar with Cape Cod and wintered at Vin- 

 land. There is no reasonable doubt but that they landed 

 on Nova Scotia ; there is no reason to disbelieve the 

 records which state that they wintered farther west 

 where no snow fell, so that the cattle found their food in 

 the open fields, and wild grapes were abundant, as they 

 certainly are in Rhode Island and southern Massa- 

 chusetts, as compared with Maine or Nova Scotia. 



Without reasonable doubt, then, Helluland of the 

 Norse and Icelandic repords is Labrador, though it is 

 not impossible that the bare and rocky coast of north- 



