52 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
broke out in Norway after intercourse ceased, and the 
Eskimos had always been living with the Norsemen, 
having been in Greenland many centuries before the 
Norsemen came. Moreover, the Eskimos could not 
assemble and attack in large numbers 1 . 
The disappearance of the colony after a lapse of two 
centuries is fully accounted for by the neglect of the 
Norwegians to send ships. The colony could not exist 
without that help. Those settlers who remained gradually 
died off, the survivors merging in the Eskimo population. 
The vestiges confirm the narratives of the Sagas. 
There are the stone church at Kakortak, the foundations 
of churches and homesteads, the bones of oxen and goats 
in the refuse heaps. Two grave-stones have also been 
found. One marked the place where the body of Hroaldr 
Kolgrimsson rested. It was found in 183 1, two miles 
north of Frederiksthal. The other is a stone with a 
runic inscription, found nine miles from Julianshaab 
in 1830 : — 
" Vigdis, daughter of Magnus, rests here. 
May God gladden her soul 2 ." 
The history of the first period of Arctic discovery was 
thus closed in mystery. Vigdis, daughter of Greenland, 
seems to speak to us' across the centuries. Her people 
achieved a great work : — the coast of Finmarken to the 
White Sea discovered; then Iceland, and finally the whole 
west coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell to Smith 
Sound, Baffin Land, Labrador, and Newfoundland. We 
see in the qualities of these Norsemen all that is required 
for the completion of the great work— energy, indomit- 
able perseverance, and dauntless courage combined with 
practical enthusiasm. Such qualities were needed and 
were not wanting to achieve the glorious work done by 
the Norsemen. Such qualities were needed and have 
not been wanting in the English race — which received a 
large strain of Norman blood, and produced the chief 
Arctic explorers of modern times — to complete what was 
so well begun in those far-off days of old. 
1 The drawings by Christianised Eskimos of Godthaab which have 
been printed, and are supposed to represent traditions about their con- 
quest of the Norsemen, merely represent what the Danes told them. 
2 Vigdis M.d. hvilir her glede gud sal hennar. 
