24 WHO FIRST SAW THK LABRADOR COAST? 



track for Greenland." This would be the course from 

 Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, it is true, but such a cour^ 

 would also take him from the eastern end of Nova Scotia 

 to Cape Race, Newfoundland, while from the present 

 position of St. John's the course to the site of the Green- 

 land Norse settlements is a northerly one. 



As Kohl states, the distance from Nova Scotia to 

 Newfoundland is about three days' sail ; but the wind 

 would have to be strong and fair all the time, for the 

 distance from Halifax to St. John's, Newfoundland, is 

 about 530 miles. A Viking's ship was by no means a 

 modern cutter either in her lines or rig. I have seen in 

 the Sogne fiord a vessel of forty or fifty tons, her hull 

 clumsy and broad, with her single mast placed mid- 

 ships and carrying a square sail ; her stern rather high, 

 and her prow rising five or six fe6t above the bows. A 

 Norwegian friend observed to me at the time, " There," 

 said he, V hang the gunwale of that vessel with shields 

 and fill her with armed men, and you would have a Vik- 

 ing's ship!" We doubt whether Biarne's craft could 

 have made in " one day and night's sailing with a favor- 

 able wind," more than, 138 statute miles, or thirty Ger- 

 man miles. At such a rate it would take from five to 

 six days to go from Halifax to St. John's, Newfound- 

 land. The passage by a swift ocean steamer of the 

 Allan Line requires from forty-two to forty-eight hours. 



Passing by Newfoundland, which is well-wooded, ex- 

 cept on the more exposed northeastern coast, Biarne, 

 sailing by a land " said to be high' and mountainous, and 

 l)ordered by icebergs, reached Heriulfsnas." This lan4 

 could have been none other than the Lfibrador coasit 

 from the mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle northward. 



