At length our pilot told us we were approaching our destination, and as the light of day began to replace the brightness of the moon, he whirled the _Panther_ into a little bight, and a few rude habitations, a flag-staff, and the belfry of a little mission church, appeared before us on a dark rocky hill-side. “Julianashaab!” said our pilot, pointing to it with as much pride and satisfaction as if he were overlooking the finest city of the world. Poor man, he knew no better! He little dreamed how miserable was his lot to be only a Julianashaaber, and dwell in peace! For this was indeed his home. He had gone down the fiord hunting seals and to gather the eggs of wild fowl upon the islands, and when he saw the _Panther_ he had just begun his work. Down went the anchor with its usual rush and rattle, and immediately the rocks were alive with people, who, aroused from their peaceful slumbers by the strange noise, sallied forth as suddenly as the witches from Kirk Alloway. Looking forward to a closer scrutiny of them when the day had fully come, we sought our bunks, and, exhausted with the excitement of the night and the constant exposure of the past few days, we turned in to sleep the sleep of weariness. CHAPTER III. A HOPEFUL TOWN IN A HOPELESS PLACE. This “Land of Desolation,” to which we had come, is the Greenland of history and of the present time. All the southern part of it, as far up as the sixty-first degree of latitude, is called the “District of Julianashaab,” and the town of Julianashaab is its capital. This town is one of the most flourishing in the whole country. It is, perhaps, the most pleasantly situated of all of them, and, standing in a region full of historic and legendary interest, it presents a good type of Greenland life, past and present, and it is well worth looking at. Being the residence of the Governor of the “District,” something of additional importance is attached to it on that account. Country squires who come up to London; backwoodsmen casting their curious eyes about them in Washington; children on a holiday excursion to a neighboring village, are not seized with greater wonder at what they behold, than is the hunter from some remote station of the Julianashaab District, when, after having braved the dangers of flood and field, he finds himself observing the latest fashions, and learning how the world moves generally in the town of Julianashaab. So much, therefore, for its social and political importance. [Illustration: VIEW OF JULIANASHAAB.]