This prosperity, and the regular relations between Europe, Greenland, and Vinland seem to have lasted till towards the middle of the fourteenth century. About this time the Skrellings attacked Vesterbygd; the succour sent by the other settlements arrived too late, and the western colony was destroyed. Osterbygd had a much longer existence. In 1418 it still paid to the Holy See as tithes and Peter’s Pence 3600 pounds of walrus’ tusks. At a period anterior to this epoch, however, Queen Margaret, sovereign of the Scandinavian dominions, impelled by motives which have been differently interpreted, had interdicted all commerce with the Greenland colonies. Shortly afterwards fleets of pirates, springing from some unknown quarter, came down upon and pillaged them; the temperature of both land and sea gradually fell; voyages became more and more difficult, and, at last, ceased altogether. Thus, when in 1721, the Norwegian Pastor, Hans Eggede, led to those frozen lands the first modern colony, he found nothing but ruins, and not a single descendant of Erick and Thorfinn. What had become of them? A letter addressed to Pope Nicholas V., quoted by M. Lacroix, throws some light upon their fate. It is dated 1448, and informs us that, thirty years previously, some strangers _coming from the American coasts_ had pillaged the colony, and massacred or carried into slavery the greater number of the inhabitants of both sexes. A great number had, however, returned to their homes, and asked for help. It is hardly possible to avoid referring to the latter, the white population, tall, and with fair hair, which Captain Graa met with on the east coast of Greenland, during his expedition in search of Osterbygd. Notwithstanding their adoption of the Esquimaux language, they certainly did not belong to their race. But were all the descendants of the bold navigators who had discovered America content to live, like the Skrellings, by the side of ruins which recalled the relative grandeur of their fathers? This hypothesis appears to me inadmissible. It seems evident to me, that the greater number of the survivors must have emigrated and sought refuge in Vinland, of the existence of which they were aware. Perhaps they were repulsed by the mixed population of Scandinavians and Esquimaux, who seem very early to have come into existence, and who were, perhaps, the invaders mentioned in the letter quoted by M. Lacroix; perhaps, again, they may have encountered warlike and inhospitable tribes, like those mentioned in the Saga of Gudleif. But the Norwegians would then only have pushed on further, till they met with some hospitable shore where they could settle.