There was no glacier in Ericsfiord when Eric went there, and there are none now, but it is surrounded by them. The mountains are of such peculiar formation that they keep back the frozen flood from Ericsfiord itself; and thus it was that this spot of earth was and still is fit for human life—an oasis in a desert, a patch of green in a wilderness of ice. But to this subject we shall have occasion to refer hereafter more at length. CHAPTER V. “THE ARCTIC SIX.” Eric named his first settlement Brattahlid. The next he called Gardar; another, the Norse name of which has been lost, now bears the Esquimaux name of Krakortok, which means, “the place of the white rocks.” The rocks are of the same metamorphic character as elsewhere in that neighborhood, and only differ from them in having, by one of Nature’s freaks, been made of lighter hue than those of the region round about. The fiord forks a short distance above Julianashaab, the southern branch leading to Brattahlid and Gardar, the northern, to Krakortok, which place it was our design to visit first. Mr. Anthon not only offered to be our pilot, as before stated, but he likewise offered us his Greenland boat. We had boats of our own, and good ones too; but then what so appropriate for a Greenland fiord as a Greenland boat? So, at least, said our pastor-pilot, and so we were all willing to confess. But what was a Greenland boat? A Greenland boat is a curiosity in marine architecture. Mr. Anthon took us down to look at the one he had offered us. It was turned bottom up on a scaffolding, so that we could stand under it and almost see through it, for it was semi-transparent like a bladder. When I thumped it with a stick, it rattled like a drum. “There it is,” said the pastor; “how do you like the looks of it?” [Illustration: THE OOMIAK AND CREW.] “What! that thing?” exclaimed the captain, with ill-concealed contempt; “go to sea in a thing like that?” “Certainly,” said the pastor; “why not?” Then he called three or four people, who had it off the scaffolding in a twinkling and down into the water, where it floated like a balloon that had been set adrift by mistake upon the sea. “It’s a woman’s boat,” explained the pastor. “Oh yes, I see,” answered the professor; “made by women. Quite an interesting object.” It was certainly made with great cunning. It was about thirty-six feet long, by six feet wide, and two and a half deep. There was not a peg, or nail, or screw in it, so far as we could see; and, judging by the same method of inspection, it was all leather. The pastor asked again how we liked the looks of it, now that it was in the water.