IV 
list of words from Ammassalik, finally a bibliography, an index 
of the whole and a map. | | 
According to the original plan, the work which was begun 
in 1906, should have been completed in 1914, but unforeseen ob- 
stacles changed the time and course of its fate. There is no need 
here to return to the cause for its delay, but I will simply con- 
fine myself to referring to what I have written earlier on the 
misfortunes which befell my work, in First Part (VII, Introduction) 
and in another volume of Meddelelser om Gronland. If however 
a prolonged composition has caused the first plans to smoulder 
away, I trust that it has at the same time strengthened the inner 
ralue of the book through the more comprehensive view of the 
material which I myself have won in the course of time, and the 
more complete comparison of the details. Unfortunately, due to 
the same reason, the printing as well as the work itself have en- 
tailed unexpected expense. Owing to that inviduous breach in my 
leisure for work, the result was not only costly, all too costly, 
for me personally, but also a heavy burden for the two institutions 
which had promised their financial support. 
The more do I feel my debt of gratitude to the Carlsberg 
Fund, which with an almost patriarchal care, supported my studies 
through the years and finally assumed a large share of the printing 
expenses of the book; also to the Commission for its aid on my 
expeditions to Greenland and in printing. My most cordial thanks 
for scientific instruction and encouragement in the work are due 
to those two men of whom I, as all my countrymen, feel proud, 
His Excellency, Professor Vilhelm Thomsen, the ingenious finder of 
new paths for comparative philology, and the Commander Captain 
Gustav Holm, the discoverer of Ammassalik. For active collabora- 
tion I wish to express again my heartiest thanks to Mr. Johan 
Petersen, formerly colonial manager of Ammassalik, for more than 
twenty years Denmark’s outpost in East Greenland. With a deeply 
orateful heart I recall my intelligent hosts and friends among the 
natives up there —their names are given in my book — who threw 
open far more than their hospitable doors, their minds and hearts, 
to the foreign visitor of a foreign race. I thank too, the clever 
compositor at the printing office, who has had a very difficult task. 
