The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525 — John Shaqi
The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525Weise, Arthur James
History
The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525
Weise, Arthur James
America -- Discovery and exploration
While the Northmen were passing the winter on the shore of the unnamed
lake, it happened one evening that a Southern man, named Tyrker, did
not return with those who had been out exploring the country. Those who
went to search for the absent man met him returning to the quarters.
They were surprised when he told them that he had found wine-wood and
wine-berries (_vinvid ok vinber_). “Is this true, my teacher?” asked
Leif. “It is really true,” Tyrker replied, “for where I was brought up
there was not wanting either wine-wood or wine-berries.” They passed this
night in sleep, but on the following morning Leif said to the men: “Two
things are now to be done on alternate days, gathering wine-berries or
hewing wine-wood and felling trees, (_lesa vinber, edr höggva vinvid ok
fella mörkina_,) with which my ships should be loaded.” Having loaded the
ship and the spring approaching they prepared to depart. To designate
the productions of the region, Leif called it Vinland (Wine-land). They
then put to sea and had a favorable wind until they came in sight of
Greenland.[50]
As a number of writers have assumed that the region of Vinland, where
Leif and his companions wintered, was the country adjacent Mount Hope
Bay, in Rhode Island, the following description of a part of the east
coast of Greenland, given by Captain W. A. Graah, who was sent there,
in 1828, by the Danish government to obtain information respecting the
site of the eastern settlement (_eystri bygd_), will likely afford
grounds for a more plausible conjecture that Vinland was a region in
Greenland: “August 30 [1829].—The place we now were at was the Ekallumiut
[between the sixty-third and sixty-fourth parallel of north latitude],
so often mentioned. The cove, the length of which is between one and two
cable-lengths, has on both sides of it, but particularly on the eastern,
fields of considerable extent, covered with dwarf-willows, juniper-berry,
black crake-berry, and whortleberry heath, the first-named growing to
the height of two feet, and the whole interspersed with a good many
patches of a fine species of grass, which, however, was very much burnt
by the heat of the sun, except in the immediate vicinity of the brooks
and rivulets that, in great number, ran down the sides of the hills, and
intersected the level land in every direction. At the the bottom of the
cove stretches an extensive valley, through which runs a stream abounding
in char, [a species of salmon,] and having its source in the glaciers,
of which several gigantic arms reach down into the valley from the height
in the background. On the banks of this brook the grass grew luxuriantly;
but it was far from being, at many places, of a height fit for mowing,
so that even this spot, where grass was more abundant than anywhere else
perhaps along the whole coast, does not seem calculated to furnish winter
fodder for any considerable number of cattle. Various flowers, among
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