others were tossed back again by the succeeding surf. Joining prayer with labor, they invoked the Providence of God, who finally rescued them all from the imminent danger. Rowing hard with the ebbing waves, the last of the crews found safety upon the open sea. Thus they escaped from the darkness and from the frigid regions. After a time they unexpectedly came to an island that was surrounded by very high cliffs, like a city by walls. They found, however, a landing-place, and disembarked to take a sight of the country. There they saw people who at noonday hid themselves in underground holes, at the entrance of which were lying a number of vases made of gold and other metals that mortals hold for precious and rare. Of these vessels they took to their small boats as many as they could carry and rowed full of joy to their ships. They soon made for the shore again; but this time they saw its inhabitants of a wonderfully great size, the like of whom we call cyclops, and who were accompanied by dogs of extraordinary size also. These animals suddenly fell upon one of the Frisons and tore him to pieces before the eyes of his companions, who hurried away to their ships and set out to sea, while the giants were angrily shouting at them from the shore. The adventurous explorers now took their course for home, and, after a prosperous voyage, landed in Bremen, where they gave to Archbishop Aldebrand a full account of their expedition, and made offerings of thanks to Our Lord and St. Willehad for their preservation and safe return."

We could not well contest the truth of this narrative, but it is no easy matter to explain all its incidents and to identify the distant island. It is clearly stated that the Frisons sailed past and to the West of Iceland, but where did they meet with darkness and the flowing and

ebbing billows? It was in the cold northern latitude, we know; and it might not be far amiss to consider as the place of danger the coasts of Greenland, where the "Hafgerdingar," the breakers, together with the icebergs, are at all times full of peril for seafarers, especially during the seasons of dense and dark mists. It is further related that the hardy explorers left the cold regions for more sunny climes, and found an island whose natives retired to their subterranean dwellings in the midst of the day, apparently to escape from the burning heat of the sun. This circumstance would hardly agree with the latitude of Newfoundland, and we would rather be of the opinion that the Frisons discovered the rock-bound isle farther south on the American coast. This view would also more plausibly explain the possession of gold and silver vases by the aborigines, who may have been Mexicans or their neighbors trading with them. However all this may be, it could hardly be denied that the strange island, with its inhabitants stranger yet, was some portion of our western hemisphere, very imperfectly known in Europe at the time of Adam of Bremen.

The vague and undetermined character of the Frison expedition during the first half of the eleventh century does not allow us to draw from it any certain conclusion bearing upon our historical researches. We have for this period no reliable information but from the ancient manuscripts of Iceland, and, as we remarked already, these also, after having cast but a few gleams of light upon the three hundred years of American history subsequent to 1013, leave us completely in the dark as to all that relates to our continent after the middle of the fourteenth century.

This scarcity and final absence of information have led some authors to believe that the expedition of Frey

1

disa and of the two Icelandic brothers in the year 1012 was the last attempt at Scandinavian colonization on the American continent; or, at least, that the colonies repeatedly commenced by the Greenlanders never were of any lasting duration, since there is not so much as a suggestion in Icelandic writings of a permanent occupation of the country. The fact, however, of a Greenland bishop, Eric Gnupson, undertaking a voyage to Vinland in 1121, scarcely allows any doubt of the residence of some of his countrymen on our coasts until that time. The lasting intercourse of the Greenland tradingvessels with Vinland and Markland is another strong indication of the existence of some Scandinavian tradingposts along the American shores. For, while it is generally admitted that all commerce was soon interrupted and given up between Iceland and the new countries, justly considered as belonging to the Greenland republic,3 it seems improbable, if not impossible, that so adventurous and sea-roving a people as were the Greenlanders should have flourished for more than four hundred years without continuing their profitable relations with the attractive region which they had found almost in their neighborhood. The extracts which we have made from the Icelandic sagas, though few, sufficiently establish that this theoretical probability was a fact, that voyages from Greenland to our continent were actually made until the middle of the fourteenth century.

1

Not a few learned writers consider these voyages as

Rafn, Mémoire, p. 36; Reeves,

3 Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters, S. 83.

2 Reeves, p. 6; von Humboldt, Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 341; Jousset, in Compte Rendu du Congrès Scientifique des Catholiques, Paris, 1891, sec. viii. p. 107.

p. 6.

Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiii. p. 231; Reeves, p. 82; Maltebrun, t. i. p. 363; Payne, p. 83; Rafn, Mémoire, p. 36.

habitual and regular,' and others conclude, from the simplicity and laconism with which the voyage of the year 1347 is mentioned by the Icelandic sagas, not only that the Scandinavian provinces of America were well known in Iceland at the time, but also that the intercourse of Greenland with them was common and frequent; else, they justly remark, the arrival of the disabled Greenland vessel would have excited more comment to be reflected in the contemporary manuscripts.2

The intercourse between Greenland and its continental trading-posts was undoubtedly much impaired by the calamitous times of the end of the thirteenth century. The Icelandic Government Annals record, under date of 1287, that the Northmen suffered from severe sicknesses, successive hard winters, epidemics, and consequent famine.3

Another fearful visitation put an end to all regular and habitual communication with Vinland. No wonder that no mention of Vinland voyages is made any more after the year 1347, for in that very year commenced to spread the most deadly contagion that ever ravaged Europe, and especially its northern countries. The Black Death—so it was called-extended from Norway, where it reduced the population from two million to three hundred thousand, into Iceland and Greenland, where it raged, as in Norway, until the year 1351.* In consequence of the frightful mortality, Greenland had

1 Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. pp. 328, 335, ref. to Torfæus, Vinland. Ant., p. 71; Mallet, t. i. p. 254; Moosmüller, S. 203.

2 Gravier, p. 116, ref. to d'Avezac and Kohl; Rafn, Mémoire, p. 37; Gaffarel, Histoire, t. i. p. 340.

3 Gravier, p. 160, n. 3: "1287: His temporibus morbi graves incidebant, multæ continuæ hiemes

et lues hominum, atque postea fames."

Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiii. p. 232; Maltebrun, t. i. p. 362; Petrus Olaus Minorita Roskildensis, Annales Rerum Danicarum, p. 191, ap. Langebek, t. i. p. 171; Gaffarel, Histoire, p. 344; Rasmus Anderson, p. 84.

neither men nor means any longer to uphold its former relations with its continental colonies; nay, more, it was weakened to such a degree as to become itself ere long an easy prey to the American natives. The people of Greenland had become poor and helpless, since the deadly plague had, furthermore, cut off all communion with the mother country and all assistance from the government of Denmark.1

The Greenland settlers and tradesmen established either permanently or temporarily in Vinland and Markland thus became like exiles in the midst of unfriendly tribes of Esquimaux or, more likely, of fiercer nations, that were then driving the former farther north to their present cold and sterile regions. The poor abandoned Scandinavians were compelled to submit to, and commingle with, them or to become their slaves, as were, half a century later, their countrymen of Greenland's Vestrebygd vanquished and carried away from their homes by the Skraelings of their neighborhood. The Norwegians of Vinland, says Mallet, either mixed with the natives of that country or were destroyed by them; and Crantz is of the opinion that "from these outcasts are descended the present Indians in the vicinity of Newfoundland, who are so strikingly distinguished in their person and mode of life from all other Americans." This opinion, which derives great weight from later historical facts, is effectually borne out by a narrative made up from various letters written by the Venetian brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno, who were cruising on the northern seas at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth.*

3

1 Pontanus, lib. vii., ad an. 1348. 2 T. i. p. 254.

3 History of Greenland, ap. Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xv. p. 250. * Although published several

times, this interesting narrative might not easily be found by our readers. We, therefore, reprint it as Document LIV.