A vessel called the _Hope_ was bought, and the adventurous priest embarked with the crew and his wife and four little children, a party altogether of forty souls. The 2nd May, 1721, was the memorable day when the _Hope_ sailed from Bergen, and the history of modern Danish Greenland was commenced. Though ice was found blocking up the approaches to the Greenland coast, a lane of water was seen apparently leading to the land, and the little vessel was steered into it. But the ice closed, and she was beset, a dense fog being followed by a strong gale, and for some time the adventurers were in danger. The gale had the effect of clearing away the ice, so that at last the _Hope_ was brought safely into Gilbert Sound of Davis. Hans Egede called it Bell’s River. He appears to have been ignorant of the details of Davis’s voyages, but he must have known the expedition of Hall, who named one of the branches of the fjord Bell’s river, after Mr Richard Bell, and the other after Sir James Lancaster. Hans Egede set up the house he had brought out in pieces on an island in Gilbert Sound, the native name of which was Kenget, renamed by him Haabetsö or Hope Island. At first the Eskimos were very friendly and Egede at once began to learn the language. But neither he nor his people were at all efficient in hunting and fishing, and they could only occasionally get food from the natives. The consequence was that scurvy broke out, and most of his people returned in the _Hope_ when the navigable season arrived. But in 1723 two ships arrived with provisions and the good news that the King had imposed a Greenland assessment for the support of the colony. It was found that the Dutch had long frequented Davis Strait for the whale fishery. Several ships arrived every year and they made use of two or three harbours, but had no permanent settlement. In the second year after his arrival Hans Egede undertook a boat voyage in search of the lost Greenland colony. The distance was great from Gilbert Sound to Cape Farewell, and then round to the east side of Greenland, for the general belief then was that the “East Bygd” of the Norsemen was on the east coast. On Egede’s map Frobisher’s Strait was shown to pass through Greenland, instead of on the other side of Davis Strait, and he naturally relied upon being able to make a short cut to the east coast by passing through it. This was the last time that anyone was misled by the errors of Niccolo Zeno’s chart. For the first land of Frobisher was supposed to be the Friesland of Zeno, in which case the second land would be Greenland. In reality the first land was Greenland, and the second land of Frobisher was the other side of Davis Strait.