110 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



four enables geographers to fix the latitude of the place where 

 they were at 41° 43' 10", which is very nearly that of Mount 

 Hope Bay. 



One evening a man of the party was missing, — a German 

 named Tyrker, whom Leif regarded as his foster-father. He 

 determined to seek for him, and for this purpose chose twelve 

 reliable men. Tyrker soon returned and said that he had been a 

 long distance into the interior, and had found vines and grapes. 

 "But is this true, my fosterer?" said Leif. " Surely is it true," 

 he returned; "for I was bred up in a land where there is no 

 want of either vines or grapes." The next morning Leif said to 

 his sailors, "We will now set about two things, in that the one 

 day we gather grapes, and the other cut vines and fell trees, 

 so from thence will be a loading for my ship." The record 

 states that the long-boat was filled with grapes. Leif gave the 

 country the name of Vinland, from its vines. 



To the reader of the present day it may seem that the wild 

 vines of Massachusetts and Rhode Island can hardly have been 

 so prominent a feature of the native products as to have given 

 a name to the whole region. But it is certain that six centuries 

 later the Puritans found wild maize and grapes growing there 

 in profusion, while the neighboring island of Martha's Vineyard 

 received its name from the English for a precisely similar reason. 



Upon the return of Leif to Greenland, his brother Thorwald 

 thought that " these new lands had been much too little explored." 

 Leif gave him his ship, and he put out to sea, with thirty men, 

 in the year 1002. Nothing is known of their voyage till 

 they came to Leif's booths in Vinland. They laid up their ship, 

 caught fish for their support, and spent a pleasant winter. They 

 passed two years in exploring the interior, and then returned by 

 the north, where Thorwald was killed in a battle with the Esqui- 

 maux. 



But a more successful discoverer than any of these was 

 Thorfinn Karlsnefne, — that is, Thorfinn the Predestined Hero.. 



