388 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



at first to be unconscious of the fact, and continues to swim against it, and 

 then allows the boat to approach it from behind. If entangled in the net, it is 

 soon drowned, as, like all the whale tribe, it is obliged to come to the surface 

 to breathe. 



A large quantity of cod are caught in various parts of the South Inspecto- 

 rate, particularly at Fiskernasset, which, being less subject to fogs and more 

 exposed to the sea-wind, offers peculiar advantages for the drying of the fish. 

 The capelin (Mallotus villosus), which in May and June visits the coasts of 

 Greenland in great numbers, is eaten both fresh or laid upon the rocks to dry 

 for the winter. The sea-wolf, the lump-fish, the bull-head, the Norway had- 

 dock, the salmon=trout, are likewise important articles of food. The halibut 

 grows to a huge size, and a smaller species {Hippoglossus pinguis) is fished for 

 at the depth of 180 or even 380 fathoms. The banks frequented by this fish 

 are most valuable to the neighboring Greenlanders. Many are no doubt still 

 undiscovered, others may be known by the dead fish floating on the surface, or 

 by the seals diving out of the water with a flat fish in their mouth. Long-tail- 

 ed crabs are easily caught in many parts, and the common mussel may be 

 gathered almost everywhere at ebb tide. 



Crowds of birds nestle during the summer on the rocky shores, particularly 

 at Upernavik, where the largest breeding-places are found. They are general- 

 ly killed with small blunted arrows. In the ice-fjord of Jacobshavn the gulls 

 are caught ingeniously by floating traps on which something brilliant or re- 

 sembling a fish is fixed. The eggs of the sea-birds are gathered in vast num- 

 bers, and the feathers and skins of the eider-duck and auk are both exported 

 and used for the lining of boots. 



Compared with the wealth of the seas, the land is very poor. The chase of 

 the reindeer is, however, important, as its skin affords both a warmer and a 

 softer clothing than that of the seal, and serves moreover as a bed-cover or a 

 sledge-carpet. Reindeer-hunting is a favorite summer occupation of the Green- 

 landers, who annually kill from 10,000 to 20,000, and export about one-half of 

 the skins. Only a few cows, sheep, and goats are kept at Julianshaab. For 

 want of hay they are fed with fish during the winter. In South Greenland the 

 potato is cultivated by the European residents as a luxury. The plant never 

 flowers, and even buds are rare. Turnips, cabbages, salad, and spinach like- 

 wise grow in South Greenland, but barley sown in the gardens scarcely ever 

 comes to ear. In summer the windows of the houses are gay with geraniums 

 and fuchsias and other flowers of a more temperate zone. 



Among the indigenous plants, the berries of the Empetrum nigrum^ Vac- 

 cinium uliginosum^ and Vaccinium vitis idcea furnish the Greenlanders with 

 their only vegetable food. While the coasts exposed to the bleak sea-winds 

 afford scanty traces of vegetation, the valleys and hill slopes of the more 

 sheltered fjords are green during the summer, and justify the name bestowed 

 by Erick on the land of his adoption^ Forests are of course out of the question 

 in Greenland, though in some places the birch attains a not inconsiderable 

 size. Thus in a dell at the upper end of Lichtenau Fjord a thicket of these 

 trees, fifteen feet high, surrounds a little lake fed by a waterfall, the largest 



