Without compass, without chart, full three centuries before the Genoese crossed the Atlantic, the Norsemen, in frail and open barks, braved the dark and angry sea (which was so sorely tossing even our proud vessels); and, unchecked by tempest, by ice, or hardship, penetrated probably as far as we could in the present day. This, and much more, throws a halo of ancient renown around this lonely land; moreover, I had long loved Nature's handiworks, and here assuredly her wonders reward the traveller. Here, methought me of the mighty glacier, creeping on like Time, silently, yet ceaselessly; the deep and picturesque fiord pent up between precipices, huge, bleak, and barren; the iceberg! alone a miracle; then the great central desert of black lava and glittering ice, gloomy and unknown but to the fleet rein-deer, who seeks for shelter in a region at whose horrors the hardy natives tremble; and last, but not least, the ruins of the Scandinavian inhabitants, and the present fast disappearing race of "the Innuit," or Esquimaux. Dullard must he be who sees not abundance here to interest him. Flirting with the first ice we saw, it soon appeared that the training of the uninitiated, like puppies, was to be a very formal and lengthy piece of business. Thanks to an immense deal of water, and very little ice, the steamers eventually towed the "Resolute" and the transport (a lively specimen of the genus), into the Whale-Fish Islands,--a group of rocky islets, some twenty miles distant from the excellent Danish harbour of Godhaab on the Island of Disco. [Headnote: _WHALE-FISH ISLANDS._] We did as our forefathers in anchoring at the Whale-Fish Islands, but would strongly recommend those who visit this neighborhood to go to Godhaab rather. Its anchorage is good, communication with Europe a certainty, and the hospitality of the Danish residents, few though they be, cheering and pleasant to ship-sick wanderers. Having thus expressed my total dissent from those who, with steam vessels, go to Whale-Fish Isles, it will be but fair for me to stay, that I arrived at this our first stage in the journey to the Nor'-West, in far from good humour. We had been twenty-four days from Greenhithe to Cape Farewell, and sixteen days from the latter point to our anchorage; hurry being out of the question when a _thing_ like the "Emma Eugenia" was pounding the water in a trial of speed with perfect snuff-boxes, like the "Resolute" and "Assistance." Patience and a four-day tow had at last finished the work: and to all our anxious inquiries about the prospect of the season, as to where Penny was, and whether any intelligence had reached the settlements? not an answer was to be obtained from a besotted Danish carpenter, whose knowledge appeared to be limited to a keen idea of changing, under a system he called "Trock," sundries (with which the Danske Koeing had intrusted him) into blubber and seal-oil.