account of the many eggs found there corresponds better to-day to a small island off the Nantucket Sound, which, for the same reason, is called Egg Island. We learn from modern descriptions of Massachusetts that several small uninhabited islands off its coast are still the breeding-places of great numbers of common- and of eiderducks, and that the name of Egg Islands is given to some of them, and not only to one situated close by Monomoy Beach, which is more likely the one alluded to by the sagas.' The currents and counter-currents about these localities are caused by the Gulf Stream, which, in its northern course, is barred by the islands Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and by the protruding peninsula of Barnstable.

Thorfinn landed on the shore of Straumfiordhr, and, finding the country to be extremely beautiful, concluded to winter there. He and his men confined their operation too exclusively to exploring the neighborhood. Cold and bad weather set in and continued, while their stock of provisions grew smaller and hunting and fishing more difficult and less remunerative. Food had finally become so scarce that they gladly feasted on the blubber of a dead whale thrown out upon the shore, until the pagan at heart, the old Thorhall, boasted that at his prayer the fish had been sent them by Thor, the Scandinavian god. Hearing this, they cast the whale into the waves again, invoked with greater confidence the Providence of Almighty God, and ere long found fish, game, and eggs in abundance.2

This incident could not fail to create ill-feeling between Thorhall and nearly all the other members of the expedition. He wanted to start in quest of Vinland, which he pretended was lying to the North, while Thor

1 Rafn, Mémoire, p. 22.

2 Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 137; supra, p. 192.

finn knew well that it was to be found farther south. Thorhall had succeeded in convincing eight of the men, and Thorfinn placed at their disposal one of the ships or of the long-boats. The malcontents then left their companions and sailed past Furdustrandir and Kialarnes, but they were driven by westerly gales to the coast of Ireland, where, according to the accounts of some traders, they were seized and made slaves in the year 1008.1

Karlsefne, together with Snorre and Bjarne and the rest of the crews, in all one hundred and fifty-one men, sailed southward, and arrived at a place where a river falls from a lake into the sea. Opposite to the mouth of the river were large islands. They steered into the lake, and called the place Hop, "í Hópe." On the rising grounds they found grape-vines, and on the low lands fields of wheat growing wild."

Of these wheat-fields Adam of Bremen wrote already in the eleventh century: ". . . Sweinn, king of Denmark, spoke of still another country, named Vinland, seen by many in that ocean; and we have learned, not from deceiving presumptions, but from reliable reports of the Danes, that it abounds with cereals not sown.3 Rafn,* Moosmüller," and others think this native wheat to be the maize or Indian corn, zea mays; but Ruge correctly remarks that this useful plant does not grow spontaneously in the New England States, and was not, before the beginning of the seventeenth century cultivated as far north as the forty-fourth degree. Cartier saw fields of grain on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the

6

year 1534. On the occasion of his discovery of Chaleur Bay, he describes the wild wheat as having an ear like that of rye and berries similar to those of oats.1 The spontaneous wheat is evidently the American wild rice, zizania aquatica, which grows along the banks of the rivers and in marshy places, as far as the fiftieth degree of northern latitude.

After exploring the country around Mont Haup Bay, Thorfinn chose, for the location of his buildings, the western shore in preference to the eastern, where he found the booths of Leif Ericsson. For the sake of greater security and other obvious advantages, he built the dwellings of the different crews at intervals, all the way from the southernmost point of the land or Bristolneck to quite a distance along the Taunton River, claiming as a new Bygd or province of Greenland, and taking possession of, all that district contained within the Taunton on the East, the Black River on the West, the ocean on the South, and on the North the Blue Hills, of which he speaks farther on.2

The new-comers soon obtained the encouraging assurance that there was no danger here of any scarcity of food or clothing. They found every stream to be full of fish, and especially of excellent salmon, while the sea-coast was equally rich. To spare the trouble of fishing, they dug holes along the shore, which the waves would cover at the tidal flow, and at ebb-tide they went and took with their hands all the halibut they wanted. Farther off the land they had good opportunities to catch whales, especially of the species which they called "reidhr," the balæna physalus. Modern descriptions

1 "Qui a l'espy comme le seigle et la graine comme de l'avoine." (Discours du Voyage, Rouen, 1598, p. 48.)

3

Moosmüller, S. 118; Rafn, Map in Antiq. Amer.

"Helgir fiskar."

of Rhode Island continue to mention the abundance of fish in its rivers, and halibut is still plentiful on the New England coast, while not so very long ago the whale fishery was still remunerative there.

The adjoining woods, now mostly destroyed, were then the abode of all kinds of game and wild animals,1 whose flesh and furs abundantly provided for the wants of the Northmen."

Neither were the colonists obliged to dispense with the delicacies, the white-meats of their native countries. They let their cows roam on the grounds adjoining their residences, and every day they had a competent supply of milk. No snow fell deep enough that winter to prevent the cattle from grazing in the open fields.

A fortnight after their arrival, while looking about one morning, they observed a great number of canoes with men rowing towards them and agitating long poles so as to make them whistle. "What thinkest thou of this?" Thorfinn said to Snorre. "I think," answered he, "that they are making signals of peace, and it behooves that we set up the white shield." At the sight of this friendly token the natives approached the shore and gazed wonderingly at the fair strangers. These people were all sallow-colored and ill-looking, had ugly heads of hair, large eyes, and broad cheeks. After staring at the Northmen for a while, they rowed away again to the Southwest, past the cape now called Bristolneck.

One day in the beginning of the year 1008 the Northmen saw again a multitude of canoes gliding towards them, and, after an interchange of the signals of

1 "Mikill fióldi dýra á skóginum medhr allu móti."

2 Rafn, Mémoire, pp. 22, 23; Moosmüller, S. 126, 127; Gravier,

peace, the aborigines drew nigh, and immediately commenced bartering. As our Indians still do, they showed a marked preference for red cloth, and gave in return skins and furs all gray.' They would fain have bought swords also and spears, but Karlsefne and Snorre forbade their people to sell these to them. In exchange for a pelt entirely gray the Skraelings took a piece of cloth of a span in width, and bound it round their heads. The exchange was carried on in this way for some time. But the Northmen perceived that their stock in trade was beginning to grow scarce; whereupon they cut it up into narrower strips, not wider than a finger's breadth; yet the natives gave as much for these smaller bits as they had formerly given for the larger ones, or even more. Thorfinn also ordered the women to bring out milk-soup, and when the Skraelings had tasted of it, they relished it so well that they bought it in preference to anything else, casting away what they had the most precious for the satisfaction of their gluttony, and wasting in their bellies, the saga says, the price of valuable merchandise which the white men carefully stowed away in their ships. Thorfinn's crew thus formed the first of those fur companies whose greed and dishonest traffic have since caused the ruin and extinction of many an Indian tribe.

Whilst this bartering was going on, it happened that a bull, which Thorfinn had brought along, came out of the woods, bellowing loudly. At its appearance the Skraelings became terrified, rushed to their canoes, and rowed away to the South; nor did they return any more as they used to do. The prudent Scandinavian leader, doubting their further dispositions, erected a strong palisade around his villa.

1 "Algrá skinn."