INTRODUCTION. 
Xlll 
^him from Norway, and who afterwards fled for 
iprofcection to the scarcely accessable rocks of the 
W^stman’s Islands ; but there Ingulf pursued and 
sl^jv them. 
# 
Iceland was found by these first settlers to be 
uninhabited *, though from various little utensils 
belonging to the Roman Catholic worship, such 
^is bells, crosses, &c., that were met with by 
Ingulf, he was led to conjecture that the coasts 
;must have been occasionally visited by fishermen 
from Ireland or Scotland, where this religion 
was prevalent. The whole surface of the coun¬ 
try was overgrown with forests, through which 
fit was necessary to open a passage with the axe 
las often as they went on their journies. 
I 4 
i . 
So great was the number of Norwegians -f* who 
now followed Ingulf to Iceland, to escape from 
|the yoke of a proud tyrant at home, that in 
jthe course of sixty years, from the time of In¬ 
gulf’s first arrival, the whole of the coasts and 
most of the habitable parts are said to have 
ibeen occupied. 
' 
mi- 
The form of government J established among 
Arngrim Jonae Tsl. Tract. 
t Ibid. 
% Yon Troil’s Letters on Iceland. 
