Another map of somewhat later date, by Sigurdr Stefánsson, probably 1590[194] (Fig. 18), is a quite honest presentation of the traditional views of Icelanders at that time and is distinctly more modern than the Zeno map in the complete severance of Greenland from Europe and its union with the great western land mass which included Helluland, Markland, and Vinland, supposed to be divided by a fiord from “America of the Spaniards.” Of course, that union with the Western continent is not precisely accurate and the eastward trend which he gives his great peninsula is still less so; but his map, often copied, remains a peculiarly interesting production. LIFE OF THE ICELANDIC COLONY To hark back to Adam of Bremen, the charges of special cruelty and predatory attacks on seafarers in the middle of the eleventh century awaken some surprise. The life of the people seems simple and innocent enough, as disclosed by their relics and remnants, which have been unearthed with great care. As seal bones predominate in their refuse piles, this offshore supply must have been their greatest reliance for animal food; but they had also sheep, goats, and a small breed of cattle. They spun wool and wove it; they carved vessels of soapstone, sometimes with decoration; they milked cows and made butter; they exported sealskins, ropes of walrus hide, and walrus tusks; they paid tithes to the Pope in such commodities; they boiled seal fat and made seal tar; they gathered tree trunks as driftwood far up the coast and probably brought back cargoes of timber from Markland; they built substantial houses and churches, using huge stones in some cases. But they had to import grain, iron, and many other articles from Europe; and the infrequent visits of ships from Iceland, Norway, and elsewhere must have made a break in the monotony of their lives which they could ill afford to forego. One would expect them to be especially kind to such visitors. [Illustration: FIG. 18--Sigurdr Stefánsson’s map of Greenland, 1590, showing the severance of Greenland from Europe and its union with the western land mass which includes Helluland, Markland, and Vinland. Cf. with Fig. 14. (From Torfaeus’ “Gronlandia antiqua,” Copenhagen, 1706, in the library of the American Geographical Society.)]