Other settlers followed the first ones and made new homes for themselves on the western coast of Greenland, not far from the place chosen by the first-comers. Here, in rough stone houses, little children were born and grew up to be men and women.
These children did not know the taste of bread. They lived mostly on the meat of seals, walruses, and reindeer, the berries they picked in summer, and the eggs of the wild birds that flew in great flocks over the country when the long, cold winter was over.
They had many a good time, though. They romped in the frosty air; they slid on the ice; they petted their lambs and played games; and then, when evening came, they gathered about their fathers to listen to wonderful tales of adventures with wild animals and of fights for life among icebergs and glaciers. Often they must have held their breath, and their blood must have been stirred as they thought, “Soon we will grow up and we, too, will dare what our fathers have dared.”
The Eskimos.
More than three hundred years passed by. Then the children of the settlers suddenly discovered that they were not the only ones living in Greenland. Not far to the north there were other boys and girls with yellow skins, black eyes, round faces and mouths ever ready to stretch in smiles. Far different, indeed, they looked from the Norse children with their fair hair and blue eyes.
These little strangers spoke an odd-sounding language and when they pointed to themselves they said, “Innuits,” meaning “people.” No doubt they and their parents had thought themselves the only people in the world. The Norsemen called them Skrællings; but long afterwards, when other white men came to Greenland and noticed the manner of living of the natives, they gave them the name of Eskimos which means, “Eaters of raw meat.” To this day we know them as Eskimos.
An Eskimo Mother and Baby.