BISHOP PAUL EGEDE
CHAPTER XIII
GREENLAND
Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of Greenland—Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's journeys—Berggren's discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms and whales—Edward Whymper's expedition—Greenland in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The Germania and Hansa—The Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of Clavering Island—Franz Josef Fiord—The drift of the Hansa—The Greely expedition—The International Polar stations—Voyage of the Proteus—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's wagon—The Eskimo house at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The rescue of Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His four years' expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The Roosevelt—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern advance—Peary reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.
Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the parish of Vaagen, in the north of Norway, reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the west—and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was led to think that some of their descendants might still be living in heathenism. Writing to the Bishop of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a missionary. The good father rather astonished him by the reply that "Greenland was undoubtedly part of America, and could not be very far from Cuba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold," and, as those who went to Greenland might bring home "incredible riches," he approved of the suggestion.
Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards, when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally, Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, gave him his patronage, the result being that a company was formed at Bergen for the development of trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the 3rd of May, 1721, the Hope set sail from there for Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including the missionary and his wife and family.
His landing-place was on an island at the mouth of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the Greenlanders very different from what he had supposed; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a profitable trade with them and keeping it quiet. To begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appearance; and their language, instead of being a Scandinavian dialect, was of the same character as that of the Eskimos of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn. Learn it, however, he and his family did; and among the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for life amid much disaster until, with the help of his son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the western coast as they are found to-day.
GREENLANDERS
From a photo by Dr. H. Rink