DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE NORTHMEN.

23

from heaven to desist from the enterprise; and, therefore, returning home, the less superstitious Leif set sail without him.

He soon descried one of the coasts which Biarn had before seen, that lay nearest to Greenland. He cast anchor and went on shore, but found only a flat, rocky region, without any kind of verdure: he, therefore, quitted it, after bestowing upon it the name of Helleland, or the "Stony Land." A short navigation brought him to another place, which Biarn had also noted. In this land, which lay very low, they saw nothing but a few scattered thickets and white sand. This he called Markland, or the "Woody Land." Two days prosperous sailing brought them to a third shore, which was sheltered to the north by an island. They disembarked there in very fine weather, and found plants which produced a grain as sweet as honey. Leaving this, they sailed westward in search of a harbor, and at length entering the mouth of a river, were carried up by the tide into a lake. As soon as they landed, they pitched their tents on the shore, not yet daring to wander far inland. The river afforded them plenty of very large salmon; the air was soft and temperate; the soil appeared to be fruitful and the pasturage very good. The days in winter were much longer than in Greenland, and they had less snow than in Iceland. Entirely satisfied with their new residence, they built houses and spent the winter there.

But before the setting in of this season, a German of their company, named Tyrker, was one day missing. Leif, apprehensive for the safety of a man who had been long in his father's family, and who was an excellent workman, sent all his people in search of him. He was at length found, singing and leaping, and expressing the most extravagant joy. The astonished Greenlanders inquired the reason of such strange behavior. Tyrker informed them that he had discovered wild grapes. Excited by this news, they immediately went to the place, and brought back several bunches to their commander, who was equally surprised. Leif still doubted whether they were grapes, but the German assured him he was born in a country where the vine grew, and that he knew them too well to be mistaken. Yielding to this proof, Leif named the country Vinland, or the Land of Wine.

Leif returned to Greenland in the spring, but one of his brothers, named Thorwald, thinking the discovery yet imperfect, obtained from Eric this same vessel and thirty men. Thorwald, arriving in Vinland, made use of the houses built by Leif, and living on fish, which were very plenty, passed the winter there. In the spring he took part of his people and set out westward to examine the country. They met everywhere with very pleasing

landscapes, all the coasts being covered with forests, and the shores with a black sand. They saw a multitude of little islands, separated by small arms of the sea, but no marks either of wild beasts or of men, except a heap of wood piled up in the form of a pyramid. Having spent the summer in this survey, they returned in autumn to their winter quarters: but the summer following, Thorwald being desirous of exploring the eastern and northern coasts, his vessel was a good deal shattered by a storm, and the remainder of that season was taken up in repairing her. He afterwards set up the keel, which was unfit for service, at the extremity of a neck of land, thence called Kiellar Næs, or Cape Keel.

On his landing one day, attracted by the beauty of the shore he discovered three little leathern canoes, in each of which were three persons, seemingly half asleep. Thorwald and his companions instantly ran and seized them all, excepting one who escaped; and, by a ferocity as imprudent as it was cruel, put them to death the same day. Soon afterwards, as they lay on the same coast, they were suddenly alarmed by the arrival of a great number of these little vessels, which covered the whole bay. Thorwald gave immediate orders to his party to defend themselves with planks and boards against their darts, which quite filled the air; and the savages, having in vain wasted all their arrows, after an hour's combat betook themselves to flight. The Norwegians called them in derision Skrællings, or Mannikins. The chronicles. tell us that these men were small and timid, and that there would be nothing to fear from a whole army of them: they add that these Skrællings are the same people who inhabit the western parts of Greenland, and that the Norwegians who are settled on those coasts, had called the savages there by the same name.

Thorwald was the only one who was mortally wounded, and dying soon after, paid the penalty that was justly due for his inhuman conduct. As he desired to be buried with a cross at his feet and another at his head, he seems to have imbibed some idea of Christianity, which at that time began to dawn in Norwegian Greenland. His body was interred at the point of the cape where he had intended to make a settlement; which cape was named Krossa Næs, or Cape Cross. The season being too far advanced for undertaking the voyage home, the rest of the crew spent the winter there, and did not reach Greenland till the folle wing spring. We are further told that they loaded the vessel with vines, and all the raisins they could preserve.

Eric had left a third son, named Thorstein, who, as soon as he was informed of his brother Thorwald's death, embarked the same year, with his wife Gudride and a select crew of twenty men.

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE NORTHMEN.

25

His principal design was to bring his brother's body back to Greenland. But, during the whole summer, the winds proved so contrary and tempestuous, that, after several fruitless attempts, he was driven back to a part of Greenland far distant from the colony of his countrymen. Here he was confined during the rigor of the winter, deprived of all assistance, and exposed to the severity of so rude a climate. These misfortunes were increased by a contagious sickness, which carried off Thorstein and most of the company. His widow took care of her husband's body and, returning with it in the spring, interred it in the burial place of his family.

Hitherto we have seen the Norwegians only making slight efforts to establish themselves in Vinland. The year after Thorstein's death, proved more favorable to the design of settling a colony. A rich Icelander, named Thorfin, whose genealogy the chronicles have carefully preserved, arrived in Greenland from Norway, with a great number of followers. He cultivated an acquaintance with Leif, who, since his father Eric's death, was chief of the colony, and with his consent espoused Gudride, by whom he acquired a right to those claims her former husband had on the settlements in Vinland. Thither he soon went to take possession, having with him Gudride and five other women, besides sixty sailors, much cattle, provision and implements of husbandry. Nothing was omitted that could forward the enterprise. Soon after his arrival on the coast, he caught a whale, which proved very serviceable to the whole company. The pasturage was found to be so plentiful and rich, that a bull they had carried over with them became in a short time remarkable for his fierceness and strength.

The remainder of that summer and the winter following were spent in taking all necessary precautions for their preservation. The next summer, the Skrællings came down in crowds and brought various merchandises for traffic. After staying there three years, Thorfin returned home with a valuable cargo of raisins and other commodities, the fame of which spreading through the north, drew many adventurers to Vinland.

Such is the story of the settlement of Vinland; and it is a fortu. nate circumstance that these ancient accounts have preserved not only the geographical descriptions, but also nautical and astronomical facts, which, besides substantiating the narrations, serve to fix the position of the points of the American coast named above. Helleland is the island of Newfoundland; Markland is Nova Scotia; Vinland is Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in which latter state the chief settlement appears to have been made.

Kiellar Næs is Cape Cod, which the Northmen describe with fect exactness as consisting of trackless deserts, and long, na beaches and sand hills. Krossa Næs is either the Gurn Plymouth, or Point Alderton at the entrance of Boston ha Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands are described with an accuracy that leaves no doubt of their ider

There is reason to suppose that the people of the north tinued to make voyages to Vinland for a long time, and the landic chronicles continue to speak of Vinland afterwards Saxon priest, named John, passed over to Vinland with an in tion of converting the Norwegian colony; but we may conclud attempt did not succeed, since we find that he was condemn death. In the year 1121, Eric, a bishop of Greenland, went there on the same errand, but we know not with what suc Since that time Vinland seems, by degrees, to have been forg in the north, and that part of Greenland which had embr Christianity being lost, Iceland also fallen from its former s and the northern nations being wasted by a pestilence and w ened by internal feuds, all remembrance of the discovery wa length utterly obliterated; and the Norwegian Vinlanders th selves, having no further connexion with Europe, were e incorporated with their barbarian neighbors, or destroyed.

DISCOVERIES AND CONQUESTS OF THE SPAN

IARDS.

CHAPTER III.

State of geographical science during the middle ages.-Origin of the spirit of maritime discovery.-Efforts of the Spaniards and Portuguese.-Ancient legends of the Atlantic Ocean.-Birth and education of Christopher Colum bus.-His reasons for believing the existence of a continent in the west.-His attempt to carry his project of discovery into execution.-His scheme condemned by a learned body at Salamanca, and rejected by the Spanish court.-Perseverance of Columbus.-Queen Isabella patronizes the undertaking.-Preparations for the voyage.

Columbus soliciting Queen Isabella to aid his projects of discovery.

A THOUSAND years had passed away since the barbarous nations of the north of Europe overthrew the Roman empire of the West, and erected new institutions upon its ruins; yet the science of geography had made but little progress. The Western World was still unknown, and the intercourse between Europe and India was carried on through the Red Sea. The spirit of maritime discovery received its first impulse from the kings of Castile, in the beginning of the fifteenth century. These monarchs, in following up their conquests and settlements in the Canary islands,