The sagas thus picture for us the natives: "Swarthy they were in complexion, short and savage in aspect, with ugly hair, great eyes, and broad cheeks." In a battle between the adventurers and these savages the warlike blood of Eirek manifested itself in a woman of his race. For Freydis, his daughter, when pursued and likely to be captured by the natives, snatched up a sword which had been dropped by a slain Greenlander, and faced them so valiantly that they took to their heels in affright and fled precipitately to their canoes.
One more story, and we are done. In the spring of 1010 Thorfinn sailed north with the two ships which he still had. One of them reached Greenland in safety. The other, commanded by Biarni Grimolfson, was driven from its course, and, being worm-eaten, threatened to sink.
There was but one boat, and this capable of holding but half the ship's company. Lots were cast to decide who should go in the boat, and who stay on the sinking ship. Biarni was of those to whom fortune proved kindly. But he was a man of noble strain, fit for deeds of heroic fortitude and self-sacrifice. There was on board the ship a young Icelander, who had been put under Biarni's protection, and who lamented bitterly his approaching fate.
"Come down into the boat," called out the noble-hearted Viking. "I will take your place in the ship; for I see that you are fond of life."
So the devoted chieftain mounted again into the ship, and the youth, selfish with fear, took his place in the boat. The end was as they had foreseen. The boat reached land, where the men told their story. The worm-eaten ship must have gone down in the waves, for Biarni and his comrades were never heard of again. Thus perished one of the world's heroes.
Little remains to be told, for all besides is fragment and conjecture. It is true that in the year 1011 Freydis and her husband voyaged again to Vineland, though they made no new discoveries; and it is probable that in the following centuries other journeys were made to the same land. But as time passed on Greenland grew colder; its icy harvest descended farther and farther upon its shores; in the end its colonies disappeared, and with them ended all intercourse with the grape-laden shores of Vineland.
Just where lay this land of the vine no one to-day can tell. Some would place it as far north as Labrador; some seek to bring it even south of New England; the Runic records simply tell us of a land of capes, islands, rivers, and vines. It is to the latter, and to the story of far-reaching forest-land, and pasturage lasting the winter through, that we owe the general belief that the Vikings reached New England's fertile shores, and that the ship of Biarni and Leif, with its war-loving crews, preceded by six centuries the Mayflower, with its peaceful and pious souls.
FROBISHER AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
Hardly had it been learned that Columbus was mistaken in his belief, and that the shores he had discovered were not those of India and Cathay, when vigorous efforts began to find some easy route to the rich lands of the Orient. Balboa, in 1513, crossed the continent at its narrow neck, and gazed, with astounded eyes, upon the mighty ocean that lay beyond,—the world's greatest sea. Magellan, in 1520, sailed round the continent at its southern extremity, and turned his daring prows into that world of waters of seemingly illimitable width. But the route thus laid out was far too long for the feeble commerce of that early day, and various efforts were made to pass the line of the continent at some northern point. The great rivers of North America, the James, the Hudson, and others, were explored in the eager hope that they might prove to be liquid canals between the two great seas. But a more promising hope was that which hinted that America might be circumnavigated at the north as well as at the south, and the Pacific be reached by way of the icy channel of the northern seas.