1012, and that none of the narratives relative to them give evidence of any permanent settlements having been made there, yet allusions to these countries, as to places well known, and with which commercial relations were kept up, are made in several manuscripts of considerably later date, the latest being from the middle of the fourteenth century; and the annals of Greenland record the departure of a Bishop Eric for Wineland in the year 1121. The results of his voyage are not, however, mentioned, nor is it said whether or not he ever reached the place of his destination.

Besides the objects above enumerated, which are supposed to owe their origin to the presence of the Northmen in America, another very remarkable discovery was made in 1845, near Fall River in Massachusetts, in the immediate vicinity of the spot which Professor Raffn in his work designates as the locality in which Karlsefne had taken up his abode. This was the skeleton of a man interred in a sitting posture, his breast being covered with a breastplate of bronze, and his waist encircled with a girdle composed of small bronze tubes, of three inches and a-half in length, strung together, some upon leathern thongs, others upon plaited threads-the metal of the tubes forming a very thin outward covering, moulded over reeds, and the whole bearing a most striking resemblance to girdles of similar construction among the antiquities of Denmark and Iceland. On the earth around the skeleton were strewed a number of white beads of various sizes, of a substance resembling meerschaum, and which had evidently been originally attached to a kind of vestment that seemed made of a fibrous woody substance. The ancient history of America is still involved in so much mystery, that in spite of the striking analogy between these relics of the past and the antiquities of the north of Europe, it is impossible to determine whether they be really the products of early Scandinavian civilisation, or of a civilisation the vestiges of which are spread over the whole length and breadth of the great western continent, but the source of which is still enveloped in darkness. As the Sagas relate the death of several of the Northmen in Wineland, it seems, on the one hand, not quite improbable that the skeleton disinterred in Massachusetts should be the remains of one of these; but the sitting posture is not in accordance with the mode of interment prevalent at that period in Scandinavia and Iceland, whereas bodies interred in this posture have been found in Mexico, Yucatan, and various other parts of America.

It was not, however, only to the south of their own icebound shores that the dauntless and enterprising Greenland settlers ventured upon voyages of discovery; the arctic seas also, the navigation of which is, even in our days of improved nautical science, fraught with so many dangers, were the theatre of their exploits; and here likewise they discovered lands, the glory of the re-discovery of which, after the lapse of nearly five centuries and a-half, is connected with the names of several British officers still living. A letter (the manuscript of which is still extant), written at the end of the thirteenth century by a Greenland priest, by name Haldor, to Arnald, chaplain to Magnus Lagabæter, king of Norway, records a voyage of discovery to the arctic regions of America, undertaken in the year 1266 under the auspices of some ecclesiastics belonging to the bishopric of Gardar in Greenland. It was the custom apparently of the Greenland

settlers to repair during summer to regions north of the Eystri and Vestribyggd, for the purpose of fishing and hunting. The localities thus visited in summer only, were called Nordsetur, and the principal stations Greipar and Kroksfiardarheidi, the first of which is believed to have been situated south of the island of Disco. The exact position of Kroksfiardarheidi is nowhere explained, but mention is made of its being more northern than Greipar; and as the Runic stone, found in the island of Kingitorsoak, to which allusion has been made in the preceding pages, proves that the Northmen had taken possession of territories so far north as latitude 72° 55', this renders it probable that some of their summer stations were in this vicinity, and it is believed that Kroksfiard may have been somewhere far in the interior of Baffin's Bay, the name Kroksfiardarheidi signifying barren heights surrounding a bay or inlet. The ecclesiastics above alluded to having, according to the priest Haldor's letter, left Kroksfiardarheidi on their voyage of discovery, with the intention of exploring regions further north than any attained up to that period, were surprised by a storm blowing from the south, and a sudden darkness, and were obliged to let their vessel drift with the wind. When the heavens again cleared up, they discovered many islands, and saw a great number of seals, whales, and bears. They penetrated into the interior part of the gulf in which they found themselves, and to the south, as far as the eye could reach, they saw nothing but icebergs. They judged by certain vestiges that the Skrælings must at one time have inhabited these regions, but the bears prevented them from landing on any of the islands. They were three days returning, and then again discovered traces of the Skrælings on some islands to the south of a mountain called Sniofell (Snow Mountain). On St James's Day they rowed a whole day and night in a southerly direction along Kroksfiardarheidi. They had frost in the night, but the sun was never below the horizon, yet so low at mid-day that when a man lay stretched across a sixoared boat the shadow of the boat's railing on the side on which was the sun fell upon his face. But at midnight the sun was as high as it was in Gardar, when it was at the highest point in north-west. Thence the adventurous priests returned to Gardar.

The information here given is unhappily very vague, yet there are some points which enable us to lay down with tolerable certainty which were the regions explored by the Greenland ecclesiastics. According to their description, the gulf or bay which they denominate Kroksfiardarheidi seems to have been so extensive that they required several days to traverse it; further, that they passed from this bay into another gulf or sea, and that they were several days in returning. As regards the first observation of the sun made on St James's Day, it leads to no very certain result, because the depth of the position occupied by the man across whose face fell the shadow of the railing not being given, the degrees of the angle formed by the railing and his face cannot be calculated, and consequently the measure is wanting by which the height of the sun on the given day ought to be determined. If, however, it be admitted, according to probability, that the angle measured 33°, the spot in which the observation was made must have been situated in north latitude 75°. The angle cannot by any means be assumed to have been larger, and cannot, therefore, have indicated a more southern latitude.

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The second observation made by the Greenland navigators establishes the fact. On St James's Day, the 25th July, in the thirteenth century, the declination of the sun was +17° 32', the obliquity of the ecliptic was 23° 32'. Supposing the bishopric of Gardar to have been situated, as is now generally believed, on the north of the bay of Igaliko, consequently in latitude 60° 55', where the ruins of a large church and several other buildings remain, and indicate the former seat of a colony, the height of the sun in north-west during the summer solstice must in this settlement have been 3' 40'. This is equivalent to the height of the sun at midnight on St James's Day in the parallel of 75° 46', which falls a little north of Barrow's Straits in the latitude of Wellington Straits. The voyage of discovery of the Greenland priests thus carried them into the same seas as those more carefully explored in the present times by Sir W. Parry, Sir John Ross, Sir James Ross, and several other British navigators.

It will be seen from all we have said, that the discovery of America by the Northmen in the tenth century, however interesting in a historical point of view, remained without any apparent influence on the general course of European events, or, as far as has yet been proved, on the development of civilisation among the natives of the new continent. If, however, the fact of this discovery having remained a secret to the world upwards of seven hundred years, should have taught antiquaries, historians, and philosophers of all classes to be less dogmatical in their assertions, by proving that intercourse between distant nations may have been established on points and at periods not dreamt of in their theories, the records of the voyages of the ancient Scandinavians to America may still prove of service in lifting the veil which to this day hangs over the origin of the nations inhabiting those regions of the New World the existence of which the Spaniards first revealed to Europe.

Columbus vesiles Declas

HERMANN.

THE

I.

HE evening was closing upon an extensive plain that skirted the territory of the Cherusci, in ancient Germany; and on the plain nothing had been visible during the previous day but the shaggy urus, and the almost equally hirsute hunters who urged it in hot pursuit. Now, however, it was covered with a populous encampment, a single glance at which sufficed to indicate the warriors to whom it belonged. Who, indeed, could remain in doubt when he beheld the strong rampart and deep fosse with which it was so securely girdled-the straight and orderly streets and tents by which it was intersected at right angles, and that gave it the aspect of a tranquil city or the regular noiseless step with which whole masses of the soldiery moved, as if by the impulse of a single spirit, in the performance of their military duties? These, still more than the splendid prætorium of the commander, and the well-known ensigns that surrounded it, announced a Roman camp. It folded within its far-reaching arms the mightiest of many nations-men brimful of life and energy, and prompt at every moment for daring enterprise; while under the leathern coverings of many of these tents the feast was spread, and the jest and song were circulating with the wine-cup. But the sound that rose from such a throng was only like the murmurings of a distant beehive—a buzz and rustle to proclaim that, life and energy, though so silent, dwelt there; while the only interruption was an occasional note of the cornet, to summon the officers to the tent of the general, or regulate the changes of the guard.

One man, a solitary speck, moved from out that embattled boundary, and directed his steps along the plain, towards the forest by which it was terminated. He proceeded for some time with a slow, listless pace, until he had left the camp a considerable distance behind him, when he suddenly paused, and looked back, as if to ascertain whether his course was watched. He peered anxiously from side to side, but there was no intervening object to conceal a lurker, and nothing in human form was visible but the long dark column of his own shadow in the already advancing moonlight, which also revealed the distant tents, and clothed them with a peaceful loveliness that was strangely at variance with the purposes they covered. His eye rested upon the military standards of Rome, that glittered over the ridges of the encampment; and as he looked, his teeth were clenched, his nostrils No. 43.

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if he feared that even the winds might hear and reveal them dreadful yet a magnificent spectacle the emotion of that solitary gazed upon the camp he had so lately quitted. His stature, con that of a Roman, might have been almost termed gigantic; bu limbs were moulded according to the most ample proportion beauty, there was a buoyancy in his step, proclaiming that so go was tenanted by a corresponding spirit; and his face, although such fierce emotions, was not only faultlessly beautiful, but seer be instinct with those high powers and purposes which the Gre would have imparted to the features of a demigod. He was com also gorgeously armed, after the fashion of those chosen cavaliers posed the emperor's life-guards, while the ring upon his finger sl he possessed the rank of knighthood. But his large, clear, blue ey brown hair clustering in massive curls upon his broad shoulder brightness of his complexion, indicated that he owed his birth climate than that of sunny Italy. His birthplace did not long mystery. After he had given full vent to the bitterness of hi softer emotion succeeded. He threw himself upon the ground, tc pressed his lips with rapture; in a few moments his eyes were tears, and his voice was broken with sobs, that heaved his man almost to bursting.

'My fatherland!' he cried, 'my country, my home!—theme of thoughts, haunt of my nightly dreams-hail! all hail, my beau beloved!' He paused, but it was only because his feelings were t for utterance. It was the return of the yearning exile to his home; the rushing of the child to that maternal bosom in which fountain of life.

Alas that emotions so noble and so holy should ever need to b by stealth, or be liable to interruption! But hush! there is a su in the wood-there is a ringing sound upon the frozen earth from of coming footsteps. The exile started to his feet, and listened anxious look. An ancient warrior of the country soon appeared his head was a rude helmet, fashioned into the form of a vulture stretched wings, that nodded terribly as he moved; upon his left a large wooden shield, painted with a diversity of gaudy colours, an right hand he bore a spear scantily tipped with iron, but of such fo weight, that few Roman bucklers could have sustained the shoencounter. So grim a figure, issuing from the dark forest, might h mistaken at such an hour for the guardian genius of these hau paring to defend them from foreign intruders. The exile hastened to meet him; but no sooner did the old man see the glitter of armour than he poised his spear, and stood ready for combat.

'What!' exclaimed the youth mournfully, 'has Rome then so er