xl 
INTRODUCTION. 
“ by nature with her choicest blessings, may not 
“ be left without inhabitants, it may be affirmed 
“ with some degree of certainty that the love of 
ee one’s native place increases in an inverse ratio 
“ with its having received favors from nature.” 
This is, indeed, most justly applicable to the 
patient and contented Icelander, who is scarcely 
ever known to leave his cold and barren moun¬ 
tains for all that plenty and comfort can offer 
him in milder regions 
* The first settlers, however, who were famed for their 
maritime enterprizes, had more of a roving disposition. 
Torwald was induced to attempt the discovery of a coast to 
the north of Iceland, before seen by one Eric Rufus. In the 
year 928, he made good a landing, and, having surveyed it, 
he gave it the name of Groenland. After living there some 
years he returned to Iceland, and prevailed on several persons 
to go and settle in this new country. Two towns. Garde and 
Albe, were founded; a monastery was established and dedi¬ 
cated to St, Thomas, and all the inhabitants acknowledged 
the Kings of Norway for their sovereigns. This colony sub¬ 
sisted till the year 1348, when the dreadful pestilence called 
the black death committed its ravages, and from that time 
these settlements seem to have been wholly forgotten or neg¬ 
lected, though Egede, in his History of Greenland , offers 
proofs that the old colony is not wholly extinct, and even 
proposes means of getting to it. It was in one of these 
voyages to Greenland that an Icelander named Biarn, driven 
to the southward in the year 1001 by tempestuous weather, 
discovered land, flat and covered with wood, which it has 
sipce been supposed must have been either Labrador or New- 
2 
