absurd stories, that keep alive a love of the
wonderful, and impress with superstitious
notions the minds of almost all the lower
class of people. In former times wrestling
and various feats of strength used to occupy
their attention; chess was much practised; and
cards, music, and dancing diversified their
leisure hours: but all these are now scarcely
heard of. Their attachment to their native
land is very strong, and might be accounted
truly wonderful, since the country seems
entirely destitute of every thing which can
add to the comforts of life, and nearly so of
the means of procuring a necessary subsistence,
were it not that, '« Providence,” as
Von Troil well remarks, “ has wisely in-
“ stilled into the human heart, the love of
“ that soil whereon a man is born; and,
tc probably with a view that those places
“ which are not favored by nature with her
“ choicest blessings, may not be left without
(C inhabitants, it may be affirmed with some
“ degree of certainty that the love of one's
<( native place increases in an inverse ratio
,,, with its having received favors from na-
“ ture. This is, indeed, most justly applicable
to the patient and contented Icelander;
who, happy in the lot that Providence has assigned
to him, is scarcely ever known to leave
his cold and barren mountains for all that
plenty and comfort can offer him in milder
regions
* The first settlers, however, who were famed for
their maritime enterprizes, had more of a roving
disposition. Torwald was induced to attempt the
discovery of a coast to the north of Iceland, before
seen by one Erie Rufus. In the year 928, he made
good a landing, and, having surveyed it, he gave it the
pame of Greenland. After living there some years he
returned to Iceland, and prevailed on several persons
to go and settle in this new country. Two towns,
Garde and Albe, were founded; a monastery was
established and dedicated to St. Thomas, and all the
inhabitants acknowledged the Kings of Norway for
their sovereigns. This colony subsisted till the year
1348, whfen the dreadful pestilence, called the black
death, committed its ravages, and from that time these
settlements seem to have been wholly forgotten or
neglected, though Egede, in his History of Greenland,
offers proofs that the whole colony is not wholly
extinct, and even proposes means of getting to it.
It was in one o f these voyages to Greenland that ah
Icelander, named Biarn, driven to the southward in
the year 1001 by tempestuous weather, discovered
land, flat and covered with wood, which it has since
been supposed must have been either Labrador or
Newfoundland; this was again visited by some of the
inhabitants of Greenland, who gave it the name of