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It is true that the Icelandic Chronicles tell us that Lief, the son of Eric the Red, 1001, sailed with a crew of thirty-five men, in a Norwegian vessel, and driven southward in a storm, from Greenland along the coasts of Labrador, wintered in Vineland on the shores of Mount Hope Bay. Longfellow's Skeleton in Armor has revealed their temporary settlement.
It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb.
A Genoese had led the way to America, while one Portuguese mariner had been the first to double the southern cape of Africa, and another, at the opposite side of the world, had opened what was then supposed the only passage through the vast continent which, according to ideas then prevalent, extended from the Southern Pole to Greenland, and from Java to Patagonia.
"I didn't say anything about Greenland, child. I said it was rain, and it froze in the air coming down; and so it did." "Did it? Why, you know a great deal don't you, Miss Polly? Did you ever go to school?" Polly sighed dismally. "O, yes, I went now and then a day. I was what is called a 'bound girl. I didn't have nice, easy times, like you little ones. You have no idea of my hardships.
In every country, he puts into the children's stockings hung up, or shoes set in the fireplace, something which they like. In Greenland, for example, he gives the little folks seal blubber, and fish hooks. So his presents are not the same in every country. However, for naughty boys and girls everywhere, instead of filling shoes and stockings, he may leave a switch, or pass them by empty.
From Greenland to Hatteras I've fished, and many smart seamen I've been shipmates with dory, bunk, and watch mates with in days gone by and many a grand one of 'em I've known to find his grave under the green-white ocean, but never a smarter, never an abler fisherman than your boy Arthur. Boy and man I knew him, and, boy and man, he did his work.
Besides, a more important object was concealed under these ostensible reasons, namely, whether the establishment of permanent colonies in the most remote parts of Greenland was practicable. A proposal was therefore promulgated through the Greenland fleet, for seven seamen to offer to remain a winter in St. Maurice's Island, and also for other seven to winter in Spitzbergen.
"True it is that he cannot a lame wolf be who with the pack from Greenland is to run," Tyrker assented. "That it was, which to Hord was a hindrance. For sport only, Egil Olafson under the water took him down and held him there; and because to get away he was not strong enough, he was drowned. But to me it seems that this one would bite. How dear would this thrall be?"
Here and there are a few big boulders, believed by geologists to have been dropped by stranding icebergs and without doubt natives of Greenland. The island holds vegetation also imported from far distant areas and established long before man, civilized man at least, came to it.
The day was beautifully clear, the sea open as far as the eye could stretch to the northward, and the "busy hum" of our people's voices could at times be heard mingling with the cheerful though fantastic songs with which the Greenland sailors are accustomed at once to beguile their labour, and to keep the necessary time in the action of sawing the ice.
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