and Icelandic judge Snorro; but Torfæus and some others contend that this country, as well as Iceland, was known before the times above mentioned; and the grounds for this opinion rest chiefly on the privilege granted to the church of Hamburgh in 834 by Louis the Débonnair, and a bull of Pope Gregory IV., wherein permission is granted to the Archbishop Ansgarius to convert the Sueones, Danes, Sclavonians, Icelanders and Greenlanders; but it is now supposed that the last two names have been interpolated by the church of Hamburgh, with a view to secure to itself certain rights over these countries; and that, the better to carry on this pious fraud, it had falsified the documents. Whether this be really the case or not, the church, it would appear, succeeded in its object, the Norwegian colonies having continued to pay to the bishops and the holy see, in the way of tythe and Peter-pence, two thousand six hundred pounds, in weight, of the walrus or sea-horse teeth.

The Norwegians and the Normans flocked in great numbers to Iceland, and a regular trade was established between the colonists and the mother country. About the year 1001, as one of the colonists, of the name of Herjolf, with his son Biorn, were proceeding on a trading voyage, their ships were separated by a storm, and Biorn was driven to Norway, where he soon afterwards learnt that his father Herjolf was gone to Greenland. On this information he set sail to the west

ward, intending to join him, but being driven by a storm a great way to the south-west he discovered, by chance, a fine plain country well clothed with wood. The relation which he gave of this new discovery, on his return to Iceland, inflamed the ambition of Leif, the son of Eric, who had founded the colony on the coast of Greenland. He immediately equipped a proper vessel, and taking with him his friend Biorn, they proceeded together in quest of the newly discovered land. On approaching the coast they observed a barren and rocky island, which they therefore named Helleland; and to the low sandy shore beyond it, which was covered with wood, they gave the name of Markland. Two days after this they fell in with a new coast of land, to the northward of which they observed a large island. They ascended a river, the banks of which were covered with shrubs, bearing fruits of a most agreeable and delicious flavour. The temperature of the air felt soft and mild to the Greenland adventurers, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the river abounded with fish, and particularly with excellent salmon. On proceeding upwards they discovered that the river issued from a lake, near which they resolved to pass the winter. On their return, they mentioned, among other things, that, on the shortest day, the sun was visible above the horizon eight hours; that a

German, who was one of the crew, in strolling into the woods, met with wild grapes, which he informed the Scandinavian navigators were such as, in his country, were used to make wine, upon which they gave to the island the name of Vinland.

The latitude deduced from the observation of the length of day, supposing it to be correct, would point out some of the rivers on the eastern coast of Newfoundland as the spot on which the adventurers wintered, several of which rivers take their rise in lakes; or it would equally answer to the coast of Canada, near the mouth of the river St. Lawrence. It is now known that vines grow wild in various parts of Canada, some of them pleasant to the taste and agreeable to the eye, such as the vitis labrusca, vulpina, and arborea;* but whether any species may grow on Newfoundland, we know so little of the interior, or even of its shores, that, after a settlement of more than two hundred years, no attempt has yet been made to collect a Flora of the island. But it is by no means necessary to suppose that the fruit found by the German was the grape. Wünbær or vin-ber (wine-berry)† is the generic name, among the nations where the grape was not known, for the ribesia and grossularia (the various species of currants and gooseberries);

* Forster's Northern Discoveries.

Dr. Percy-Translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities.

and of the former of these, Canada, Labrador, the shores of Hudson's Bay, and Newfoundland, afford several species.* There is, therefore, no reason to call in question the veracity of the relation on account of the circumstance which gave the name of Vinland to the new-discovered country.

Though Newfoundland has now been settled more than two hundred years, it is scarcely yet known with certainty whether, in the interior, any natives are found with permanent habitations on the island, or whether they are not merely annual visitors, who come over from the continent in the summer months for the purposes of killing deer, bears, wolves, and other animals, whose skins are valuable for clothing and their flesh as food; and for catching salmon in the rivers, and collecting fowls and eggs on the intermediate islands. Many of these Indians have occasionally been met with in their boats near the coast, but from the ill treatment they experienced from the European fishermen, they withdrew themselves at an early period from their intruders, and have since studiously avoided all intercourse with them. It is this which makes a recent expedition into the interior of the island, under the command of Captain

* Ribes prostratum is a native of Newfoundland; and R. recurvatum, bearing a black berry resembling a grape, is found on the shores of Hudson's Bay. Persoon. Synop. Plant. i. p. 251.

Buchan, now on the northern voyage of discovery, the more interesting, from whose manuscript journal an abstract will be given in its proper place in the sequel.

Whether we are to consider Vinland as Labrador or Newfoundland is a matter of little importance, as the Scandinavians do not appear to have made any progress in the colonization of either country, though a recent discovery would seem to indicate the remains of an ancient colony, of which we shall presently have occasion to speak. These northern hordes, however," thrust out of their exuberant hive," flourished with great rapidity on Iceland, in spite of its barren soil and rigorous climate. Religion and literature even took deep root where every luxury and frequently the common necessaries of life were wanting. The genius of native poetry survived amidst eternal ice and snows. The want of shady groves and verdant meadows, of purling streams and gentle zephyrs, was amply supplied by the more sublime and awful objects of nature,-storms and tempests, earthquakes and volcanos, spouts of liquid fire and of boiling water, volumes of smoke and steam and ashes darkening the air and enveloping the whole island, were the terrific visitors of this ultima Thule of the inhabitable world. "The scalds or bards," says Pennant, "retained their fire in the inhospitable climate of Iceland, as vigorously as