A Description of Greenland

by Hans Egede

But I think there is as much reason to question the authenticity of this relation as of the former, inasmuch as there is no such thing to be found in our Danish archives or annals. Notwithstanding which, what concerns St. Thomas’s convent in particular is confessed, and confirmed by the old histories of Greenland. Nicolas Zenetur, a Venetian by birth, who served the King of Denmark in the quality of a sea captain, is said by chance to have been driven upon the coast of Greenland in the year 1380; and to have seen that same Dominican convent. His relation is alledged by Kircherus in the following words:—

“Here is also a Dominican convent to be seen, dedicated to St. Thomas, in whose neighbourhood there is a volcano of a mountain that vomits fire, and at the foot thereof a well of burning hot water. This hot water is not only conveyed by pipes into the convent, and through all the cells of the friars to keep them warm, as with us the rooms are heated by stoves of wood fire or other fuel; but here they also boil and bake their meat and bread with the same. This volcano, or fiery mountain, throws out such a quantity of pumice stone, that it hath furnished materials for the construction of the whole convent. There are also fine gardens, which reap great benefit from this hot water, adorned with all sorts of flowers, and full of fruit. And after the river has watered these gardens, it empties itself into the adjoining bay, which causes it never to freeze, and great numbers of fish and sea fowl flock thither, which yields plentiful provision for the nourishment of the inhabitants.”

Of all the attested relations, that of Biorno of Skarsaa, concerning Bishop Amund of Skalholt, who was driven upon the coast of Greenland, deserves most to be credited; by which we learn, that the colony of the Eastern district flourished about one hundred and fifty years after the commerce and navigation ceased between Norway and Greenland; and, for aught we know, is not yet wholly destitute of its old Norwegian inhabitants. We have not been able to get any account of this matter from the modern Greenlanders, as they entertain no correspondence with those parts: either being hindered by the ice, which renders them altogether inaccessible; or else for fear the inhabitants of that country might kill and devour them; for they represent them as a cruel, barbarous, and inhuman nation, that destroy and eat all foreigners that fall into their hands. Yet notwithstanding this, if we may believe the relation of those adventurers, who have coasted a great part of the Eastern shore, there is no other sort of inhabitants found on this than on the Western side. But how it comes to pass, that the Eastern district, which was so well settled with Norway and Iceland colonies, that it contained twelve large parishes, and one hundred and ninety villages, besides one bishop’s see and two convents, and flourished till the year 1540, at last has been destroyed and laid waste, is what I cannot conceive. The opinion of some, that the black plague, so called, which ravaged the Northern countries in the year 1348, also reached Greenland, and made its havock among its Eastern colonies, is without any ground or reason; because the commerce was carried into Greenland until the year 1406; and in 1540 that colony was still subsisting. If therefore this district be destitute or bereft of its old inhabitants, it is not unlikely they have undergone the same fatality as the Western ones, being destroyed by the barbarity of the savage Schrellingers.

A whole century passed from the cessation of all commerce and navigation between Norway and Greenland, till new adventurers began to apply themselves to the discovery of the Eastern district. The first of those who took this affair to heart was Erick Walkendorff, archbishop of Drontheim, who was resolved, at his own charge, to fit out ships for this purpose, but was stopped in this pious design by King Christian the Second, whose disgrace he had incurred. The next was King Frederick the First, whose mind, as it is reported, was bent upon the said expedition, but it was never put in execution. Christian the Third (as Lyscander relates) sent several ships with the same design, but without making any discovery. Frederick the Second succeeded his royal father, as well in the government as in his good design about Greenland; on which errand he sent Mogens Heinson, a renowned seaman in those days. This adventurer, after he had gone through many difficulties and dangers of storms and ice, got sight of the land, but could not approach it; whereupon he returned home again, and pretended, that he might have got on shore, if his ship had not been stopped in the midst of its course, by some loadstone rocks hidden in the sea, so that he could not proceed though he had a very favourable and strong gale of wind, and no ice to hinder him: which frightened him and made him sail back again to Denmark. But the true loadstone rocks, in my opinion, was the terrible fright he was in of not getting safe through the dreadful ice mountains, which threatened him, or else the strong current, which always runs along the states promontory with such violence and rapidity, that it often stops a ship under full sail, so that the ship can make but little or no way at all against it. The cause by others assigned for this strange effect, the fish Remora, which the Northlanders call Kracken, is nothing but a fabulous story of the too credulous ancients, and labours under no less absurdities than the former opinion, that rocks of loadstone, laying on the bottom of the sea, can stay the course of a ship that sails on the surface of it.

In the same year that Mogens Heinson went upon the Greenland discovery, the English histories inform us, that Captain Martin Frobisher, an Englishman, was by the glorious Queen Elizabeth sent upon the same errand. This adventurer got sight of the land, but being partly hindered by the ice, which adhered to it, and partly by the shortness of the winter days (for it was late in the year), he could not approach it, and so returned to England again. Next year in the spring, he went upon the same expedition with three ships. After having gone through many great dangers of the ice and storms, he at length reached the shore, where he found a wild and savage nation; who, when they saw the English coming to them, being frightened, left their huts, and ran away to hide themselves. Some from the highest rocks threw themselves into the sea; whereupon the English entered their huts, where they met with nobody but an old woman, and a young one, who was pregnant, and those they carried away with them. It is also reported, that they here found some sand which contained particles of gold and silver, of which they filled three hundred tuns, and brought it home with them to England. As to this gold and silver sand, I cannot help questioning whether they found any such on the Greenland shore, inasmuch as Sir Martin, in the same strain, relates wonderful things of the politeness and civility of a nation that dwelt in those parts; of which he says, they were governed by a prince, whom they called Kakiunge; and carried him in state on their shoulders, clothed in rich stutfs, and adorned with gold and precious stones, which does not at all agree with the meanness and coarseness of Greenland and its inhabitants; but rather seems to belong to the rich kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, where gold and silver abounds; and from whence he may have brought the above-mentioned gold and silver sand.

But I think it high time to leave such uncertain relations to their worth; and turn our thoughts towards the pious endeavours of our most gracious sovereigns the Kings of Denmark to discover and recover Greenland again. An we find, that after the expeditions of Frederick the Second, Christian the Fourth, his successor, with great cost, ordered four different expeditions for this discovery. The first was undertaken, under the command of Godske Lindenow, with three ships. And, as the history tells, Lindenow with his ship arrived upon the East coast of Greenland (which I hardly can believe), and found none but wild, uncivilised people there, like those Frobisher is said first to have met with. He staid there three days, during which time the wild Greenlanders came to trade with him; changing all sorts of furs and skins with pieces of precious horns, against all kinds of small trifling iron ware, as knives, scissars, needles, common looking glasses, and other such trifles. When he set sail from thence, there were two Greenlanders remaining in the ship, whom he carried off, and brought them home along with him: these as they made all their endeavour to get away from him, and sometimes would have jumped into the sea, they were obliged to tie and secure them; which, when their countrymen observed, who flocked together upon the shore, they made a hideous outcry and howling, flung stones, and shot their arrows at the sailors, upon which they from the ship fired a gun, which frightened and dispersed them; and so the ship left them. The two other ships, that set sail in company and under the command of Lindenow, after they had doubled Cape Farewell, steered directly for the Strait of Davis; in which navigation they discovered many fine harbours and delightful green meadow lands, but all the inhabitants along the coast wild and savage as before. It is pretended also, that they in some places found stones, which contained some silver ore, which they took along with them; of which one hundred pounds yielded twenty-six ounces of silver. (Here again I cannot forbear questioning, whether this silver ore has been found on the Greenland shore, or rather over against it on the American coast.) These two ships also brought four savages home with them to Copenhagen.

The second expedition was made by order of the same King in the year 1606, with five ships under the conduct of the before-mentioned Admiral Lindenow; bringing along with them three of the savages (one of them dying in the voyage) which they had carried off the year before from Greenland. But this time he directed his course to the Westward of Cape Farewell, standing for the Straits of Davis; where he, coasting along, took the survey of several places, and then returned home again.

The third and last expedition of this glorious King was only of two ships, commanded by Captain Carsten Richards, a Holstenian by birth; he spied the land and its high and craggy rocks afar off, but could not come near it on account of the ice; and so, after he had lost his labour he returned home.

The fourth expedition of King Christian the Fourth, under the conduct of Captain Jens Munck, in the year 1616, was not made for the discovering of Greenland but to find out a passage between Greenland and America to China; the misfortunes of which expedition are related by the said commander.

There was, besides these four expeditions at the King’s cost, a fifth undertaken, in the same King’s reign, by a company settled in Copenhagen in the year 1636, of which company the president was the lord high chancellor, Christian Friis, as Lyscander informs us. Two ships fitted out by this company, directing their course to the Westward of Greenland, fell in with the Straits of Davis, where they traded for a while with the savages; but this was not the main concern of the commander, who was acquainted with a coast, whose sand had the colour and weight of gold, which he accordingly did not miss, and filled both their ships with the same. After their return to Copenhagen, the goldsmiths were ordered to make a trial, whether this sand would yield any gold or not; who, not being skilful enough to make such a trial, condemned it to be all thrown overboard, which was done by order of the high chancellor, president of the company. Some part of the said sand was yet kept out of curiosity, out of which an artificer, who afterwards came to Copenhagen, did extract a good deal of pure gold. The honest and well-meaning commander, who went upon this adventure, was turned out of favour, and died of grief soon after; whereby, not only the treasure they had brought home, but also the knowledge of the place where it was to be found, was entirely lost, as he kept this a secret to himself.