centuries, the great missionary, Hans Egede, visited Greenland, in 1721, he found the ruins of farmsteads and villages, the population of which had vanished. [Footnote 274: Laing, _Heimskringla_, i. 147. It has been supposed that the Black Death, by which all Europe was ravaged in the middle part of the fourteenth century, may have crossed to Greenland, and fatally weakened the colony there; but Vigfusson says that the Black Death never touched Iceland (_Sturlunga Saga_, vol. i. p. cxxix.), so that it is not so likely to have reached Greenland.] [Footnote 275: Laing, _op. cit._ i. 142.] * * * * * [Sidenote: The story of the Venetian brothers.] Our account of pre-Columbian voyages to America would be very incomplete without some mention of the latest voyage said to have been made by European vessels to the ancient settlement of the East Bygd. I refer to the famous narrative of the Zeno brothers, which has furnished so many subjects of contention for geographers that a hundred years ago John Pinkerton called it "one of the most puzzling in the whole circle of literature."[276] Nevertheless a great deal has been done, chiefly through the acute researches of Mr. Richard Henry Major and Baron Nordenskjoeld, toward clearing up this mystery, so that certain points in the Zeno narrative may now be regarded as established;[277] and from these essential points we may form an opinion as to the character of sundry questionable details. [Footnote 276: Yet this learned historian was quite correct in his own interpretation of Zeno's story, for in the same place he says, "If real, his Frisland is the Ferro islands, and his Zichmni is Sinclair." Pinkerton's _History of Scotland_, London, 1797, vol. i. p. 261.] [Footnote 277: Major, _The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century_, London, 1873 (Hakluyt Society); cf. Nordenskjoeld, _Om broederna Zenos resor och de aeldsta kartor oefner Norden_, Stockholm, 1883.] [Sidenote: The Zeno family.] [Sidenote: Nicolo Zeno wrecked upon one of the Faeroe islands, 1390.] [Sidenote: Nicolo's voyage to Greenland, cir. 1394.] [Sidenote: Voyage of Earl Sinclair and Antonio Zeno.]