Days of the Discoverers

he huge warehouses. Since the Hanseatic League secured a foothold in Norway, in 1343, most Norwegian ports had been losing trade, and Bergen, or rather the H

two sets of scales-one for buying and one for selling. Norwegians had either to adapt themselves to the new methods or give their sons to the ceaseless battle of

nd powerful, and at eighteen he looked a grown man. He did more than he promised, and listened oftener than he talked, an

nted nor crippled, and easily kept pace with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink sk

sically. "Let us drink to the founding of

the Bishop. The people are sick and sav

going to tell you some news. The King has given Paul Knutson leave to raise a compan

had know

s two and the candle, but Anders Amundson is goi

es flamed. "What

friend who had long wished to lay his bones in a strange land, and he answered, 'If your frien

familiar outline of Snaehatten against the sunrise and wondered when he should see it again. Like a questin

ooskap shall you b

hole was bored. Another hole was bored in the rib to match and a rope twisted of the inner bark of the linden was put through both holes and knotted. In surf or heavy sea, this construction gave the craft a supple strength. Calking was done with woolen cloth steeped in pitch. The mast, of a chosen trunk of fir, was

ng over the waves like the head of a swimming snake, she was no more like the tumbling carg

the world. By the way, did the Skroelings in Green

nce asked a man who knows their talk well, an

in white fur, as the polar bear was respectfully called, Arctic foxes, walrus, whales and seal abounded. Many of the new-comers became skilful in the making and the use of the skin-covered native boats called Kayaks. Nils had some skill in carving wood and stone, and could write

shore. Encouraged by the reports from Greenland, new colonists ventured out, and hou

information about Vinland[3] and the Skroelings there, fr

the Wind-wife. Knutson loo

of heavy winds, dense fogs and dangerous cliffs and skerries-or do not return at all. One was caught and crushed in the ice, and the crew were found on the floe half starved and gnawing bits of hide. In

. She was not a forgetful person-and

very old,

I do not kn

have heard with what they have seen. B

said Nils when told of this conve

w longed for their native land, where the mountains were drawn swords flashing in the sun, and the malachite and silver waters and flowery turf, the jeweled scabbards. They dreamed of the lure sounding over the valleys, of bright-paired maidens dancing the spring dans. Nevertheless in due s

ward the end of the second night the sound of the waves indicated land to starboard. In the growing light they saw a harbor that seemed sp

Knutson thought that perhaps these and not true grapes were the fruit found in Vinland. He sent a party of a dozen men, Anders and Thorolf leading, to explore the forest, ascend some hill if possible

tered and chirped, sunshine sifting through the maple undergrowth turned it to emerald and gold and jasper. Once there was a discordant screech from the evergreens, but it was only a brilliant b

g body armor of the Norsemen. The foe remained unseen and unheard. Nothing stirred,

. He went forward a step or two, lifte

maosa?"[4] (Is Kl

et without moving a muscle. Some one within it called out something which Th

ogwesnuk." (Klooskap was a great man

nswer. In a swift aside he

t us take council.' The

omen among them,-were tall and sinewy, and wore their coarse black hair knotted up on the head with a tuft of feathers. They were naked to the waist, and wore fringed breeches of deerskin, and soft shoes embroidered in br

e so nearly like that learned from the Wind-wife that he could understand it when spoken slowly, and in a halting fashion

in a very gingerly manner and took it. Then walking in single file, toes pointe

rst he had worn for some

d not wish to say so. He says that the Sagem, the jarl of his people, lives in a castle over there somewhere. I told him to give the Sagem greeting from our commander, and invite hi

in his arm. The arrow-head which had made it was a shaped piece of flint bound to the shaft with co

hips, arriving a little before sund

about soon after you left. This may have been a sc

g the headland to the south. In the largest sat the Sagem, a very old man wrapped in furs. The boats were made of

r. Knutson made one in reply, briefer but quite as polite, and brought out beads, little knives, and scarlet cloth from his trading stores. The red cloth and beads were received with eagerness, the knives with interest, and after a young chief had cut hi

tge as a means of further explorations, or if necessary, of escape. Her captain, Gustav Sigerson, was a cautious, wise and experienced seaman. Anders Amundson, as the best hunter of the expedition, was to stay, wi

at and went a-fishing. They came back white-faced, with a story of a giant squid with arms four times as long as the boat, that had risen out of the sea and tried to pull them under. Only their skill as rowers

he fortunate friendliness of the Skroelings. When scurvy appeared in the camp, their first acquaintance, Munumqueh (woodchuck) had his women brew a drink which cured it. He showed the white men also how to make pemmican, the compressed meat ration of native hunters, and how to construct and use a birch canoe, a

ne to another. Along this chain of waters lived tribes who spoke somewhat the same language and traded with one another. Southward lived a warlike people who sometimes attacked the lake tribes. Beyond the last of the lakes they did not know what the country was like. The waters inland were not troubled with the water-demon so far as they knew. Nils, Anders and Tho

llages along the river supplied corn and beans, and though it was not always easy to drag the Rotge around the carrying-places pointed out by their native guides, they did

ds, narrow valleys where floating misty clouds came and went and the sky looked like a riband. But the precipice above Naero Fiord rises four thousand perpendicular feet, and the water which laps its base is thousands of feet in depth. The Skjaeggeda

day's happenings on a birch-bark scroll, "that nobod

rt horns and curly brown fur. This sounded like a cattle country. The lake tribes evidently stood in great fear of the plains people, but in spite of their evident alarm the Norsemen determined to go and see for themselves.[8] Leaving the boat with ten of their company to guar

ace where they found the stone, and about a day's journey from camp, was a small high island in a little lake, the kind of place usually chosen by Vikings for a first camp. The stone, set in the middle of this island, would be easily seen by any one looking for it, and savages would not see it at all. When finished it was rafted acr

strat

inscription in run

ey saw. But the mischief had been done, without doubt, by the unknown warriors of the plains, who had been perhaps watching their advance. They sadly prepared to retur

andful of his men finally reached Bergen; Anders stayed in Greenland. More than five centuries afterward, a Scandinavian farmer, grubbing for stumps in a

ey from this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we returned home we found ten men red with blood and dead. A

o

the Norwegian word use

is described (Vol. I. 380). The galley "Viking" built in Norway on the model of an actual Viking ship of the early Middle Ages, was taken across the Atlantic in 1893

ut 1364. It is not positively known that Knutson attempted the rediscovery of Vinland, unless what is known as the Kensington Rune Stone is evidence of it. The writer has adopted the theory that he did take a party southward, landing at Halifax,

gends referred to as learned

time inhabited by tribes belonging to the great Ojibway nation. Their territory extended nearly t

, with her mast unshipped was heavier but not much bigger than the largest Indian carrying-canoes such as were used in the fur-trade, and these were taken from the St. Law

in Norway, speaks of his inability to be impressed as others had been, by the height of

nemies of the Ojibways. In the Ojibway language one name for these Plains

was not that of the time of Leif Ericsson, but much more modern; but later it was found that the inscription was exactly such as would have been written about the middle of the fourteenth century, when Knutson's expedition was in Greenland. Aside from the obvious lack of motive for a forgery, investigation showed that neither the farmer nor any one who mig

n the Ojibway and Dakota country. The position of the runes on the stone is precisely what it would be if the inscription

the time of the Black

ague sped ove

t so man

now most sur

with the

God an

all fr

nte

NAVI

nce Henry's

tlemen

e gods of

they m

aster's sov

trackle

nce Henry's

ismayed

t for L

r we we

d laid our c

ere well

nce Henry's

h our fla

the great-wi

ling down

bysses yaw

not fea

nce Henry's

he Cape

ur wooden c

ide the

to-day the

rked out

nte