In the year 863, a Dane of Swedish origin, named Gardar, adventurously pushing off into the Northern Ocean, though upon an object which history has not recorded, discovered the island-rock whose appropriate name is Iceland. Eleven years later, a navigator named Ingolf colonized the country, the colonists, many of whom belonged to the most esteemed families in the North, establishing a flourishing republic. The situation of these people, isolated in the midst of an Arctic ocean, and their relation to the mother-country, compelled them to exert and develop their hereditary maritime proclivities. In 877, a sailor named Gunnbjörn saw a mountainous coast far to the west, supposed to be now concealed or rendered inaccessible by the descent of Arctic ice. Erik the Red, who had been banished from Norway for murder and had settled in Iceland, was in his turn outlawed thence in 983: he sailed to the west and discovered a land which he called Greenland, because, as he said, "people will be attracted hither if the land has a good name." He returned to Iceland, and, in the year 985, a large number of ships--according to some authorities, thirty-five--followed him to the new settlement and established themselves on its southwestern shore. In 986, Bjarni Herjulfson-Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, in a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, was driven a long distance from the accustomed track. He at last saw land to the west, and took counsel with his men as to what land it could be. Bjarni declared it his opinion that it was not Greenland. They sailed close in shore, and noticed that there were no mountains, but that the land was undulating and well wooded. They left the land on their larboard side, and sailed away for two days, when they saw land again. They asked Bjarni if he thought this was Greenland; and he replied that "he thought it as little to be Greenland as the other, as he saw no high ice-hills." The sailors wished to wood and water there, but Bjarni would not consent. They sailed for three days to the north, and saw a bold shore with high mountains and ice-hills. Bjarni would not land, saying, "To me this land appears little inviting." Sailing for four days more to the northeast, they came to a country which Bjarni confidently pronounced to be Greenland, where he landed and afterwards settled. Various data furnished by this narrative, in the original Icelandic records, have enabled geographers to determine the various coasts thus dimly seen by Bjarni, but upon which he did not land. They are supposed to have been those of Long Island, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.