VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
183 
with a point of land called Herjolf’s Ness. Sailing 
to the south, he then entered a large inlet, which 
was thenceforth named Eric’s Sound. Here he 
landed to spend the winter, and having explored 
the coast, returned to Iceland, where he gave so 
favourable a description of its green and pleasant 
meadows, (from which it obtained the name of 
Greenland), that many persons were induced to 
colonize it. About the year 1000, Christianity 
began to flourish in the new settlement; a ca- 
thedral and several churches were built along the 
coast, and the bishop’s residence established at 
Garde, a little to the south of the polar circle. At 
a small place called Albe, a monastery was also 
founded near a volcano, the subterraneous fire of 
which causing a spring of boiling water to rise, 
the fluid was conducted in that state into the 
houses of this religious fraternity for all culinary 
purposes. Many public buildings were also erected 
in the colony, which, for a few centuries, proceeded 
prosperously, until it was visited by the dreadful 
pestilence, termed the black death, which commenced 
its fatal career in Cathay or China in 1346 ; spread 
all over Asia and Africa, and reaching to the south 
of Europe in 1347, extended itself in the following 
year to Britain, Germany, the north of Europe, 
Iceland, and finally to this unfortunate colony. 
Since this period of calamity, the settlement has 
been little heard of, and never even visited, to dis 
cover whether the whole of the inhabitants pe- 
rished, or whether any of the ancient race are re- 
