While the new colony was yet young, one Gunbiörn, a fisherman, was drifted in his boat far to the westward, and he may perhaps be regarded as the real discoverer of Greenland, but, although he sighted the land, he did not attempt to explore it. About the year 982, Eric Rauda, or Eric the Red Head, a man who had been convicted of manslaughter in Iceland, was banished from the island for a term of years. Sailing with some companions to the westward, he reached Greenland, and spent three years in its examination, returning at the end of that time to Iceland, where he spread a somewhat high-flown account of “its green and pleasant meadows” and of its extensive fisheries. No less than twenty-five vessels were despatched from Iceland for the newly-discovered land, a significant proof of the early progress of the former colony. One-half of these were lost; the others reached Greenland in safety. By accident or design these Scandinavians were the great explorers of their day, and the colonisation of Greenland virtually led to the first European intercourse with North America. An Icelandic settler, one Bjarni, on a voyage by which he hoped to reach Greenland, encountered severe weather, and was driven on a part of the American coast, now believed to have been that of Nantucket Island, south of the State of Massachusetts. The account he gave on his return inflamed the ambition of Heif, or Heifr, the son of that Eric who had founded the colony on Greenland. He equipped a vessel, and set sail for the New World. On approaching the coast they observed a barren and rocky island, which they named _Helleland_, and to a low sandy shore beyond it, which was covered with wood, they gave the name _Markland_. “Two days after this they fell in with a new coast of land, to the northward of which they observed a large island. They ascended a river, the banks of which were covered with shrubs, bearing fruits of a most agreeable and delicious flavour. The temperature of the air felt soft and mild to the Greenland adventurers, the soil appeared to be fertile, and the river abounded with fish, and particularly with excellent salmon.”(20) To the island they gave the name _Vinland_, because wild grapes, or berries resembling grapes, were found there. They had reached some part of the coast of Newfoundland, in all probability. The intercourse between Greenland and America was kept up to the fourteenth century, principally for the purpose of obtaining wood, but no colony was formed. Meantime the Greenland colonies grew and flourished. Sixteen churches were erected, and nearly three hundred hamlets formed on the east and west sides. That on the west had increased till it numbered four parishes, containing one hundred villages, but being engaged in perpetual hostility with the native Esquimaux, then known as Skrœlings, the colony was ultimately destroyed. In 1721, when the excellent missionary, Hans Egede, visited that country, on its being re-colonised by the Greenland