rious boats, called kajaks, were carried on board the Danish vessels. The love of country was strongly exemplified in the unfortunate captives. They were torn from their families and friends by those they had never known, and were carried they knew not whither, and nothing could reconcile them to the new and strange situation in which they found themselves.

Stock-fish and train oil (the oil of seals) was the accustomed food of Greenlanders; and these captives were supplied with it because they preferred it to the European aliment. But mere indulgence in food did not satisfy them. They were always sad, and often cast their eyes sorrowfully towards the land they had left.

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Arrived in Copenhagen, nothing which they saw gratified them. Home, native home," was all they desired to behold. They even attempted to return in their kajaks, but a hard wind drove them upon an island, where they were taken up and conveyed to Copenhagen. There two of them died of grief.

Two of the survivors made the same attempt a second time. One was probably drowned, and the other was brought back. This man wept bitterly whenever he saw a little child in its mother's arms. It was therefore concluded that he had a wife and children in Greenland. Two were employed in a pearl-fishery, in which dangerous and fatiguing business they lost their lives. The last of all pined himself to death.

The love of human beings for familiar things reconciles us to every privation if it be shared by those who are dear to us; and it seems that natives

THE GREENLANDERS.

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of the poorest countries have the fondest affection for their own country and countrymen. In Europe, the Highlanders of Scotland are remarkable for this patriotic affection, and the Swiss are equally distinguished by it.

Dr. Goldsmith, in his beautiful poem The Traveller, thus commends the latter on this account. He says of their severe climate,

"No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May,
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet still e'en here content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm."

In the severest climates, the poor man, not troubled with desires for what he cannot obtain, works with satisfaction for the mere necessaries of life, and from his daily toil,

"At night returning, every labour sped,

He sits him down the monarch of a shed,
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks that brighten at the blaze."

"Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child whom scaring sounds molest
Clings close and closer to his mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more."

What is here said of the Swiss eminently applies to the Greenland character, as it will be exhibited in the following pages.

CHAPTER VI.

THOUGH the Danes renewed their acquaintance with Greenland in 1605 and 1606, it does not appear that they established themselves in the country at that time.

Those who went thither for whales from time to time, on their return to Europe made some report of the manners of the Greenlanders, who were of course heathens. In the beginning of the eighteenth century many pious persons thought it a duty to disseminate the knowledge of the Christian religion all over the world. Some of these in Denmark united in a company called the College of Missions.

The College of Missions contributed funds to be employed in the dissemination of Christianity. This money was to be given to such generous and pious men as should become missionaries-should be willing to leave their own country, and go among the poor and ignorant, to instruct them. The King of Denmark approved of the College of Missions, and sometimes gave them money to aid their enterprises.

At this time a large portion of the inhabitants of northern Europe had become Protestant Christians. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were anciently called Scandinavia. The people of these countries had worshipped certain gods of their own, quite different from the gods of Greece and Rome; but

about the tenth century, the popes of Rome sent Catholic missionaries among them, who initiated them in the Catholic doctrines.

After the reformed religion had been preached in Germany by Luther, and printing came into use, and Bibles were printed, the Scandinavians generally became Protestants, and those who could read at all, read the Scriptures. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, a very benevolent man, Mr. Hans Egede, having heard of the ignorance and heathenism of the Greenlanders, proposed to become a teacher among them.

Mr. Egede was a preacher in Norway. He did not propose to go to Greenland alone, but to take with him several families, among whom should be men who would procure of the Greenlanders sealoil, and skins, and fish, and give them in return articles useful to themselves. The seal-skins, &c. were to be sent to Europe, and sold for money, which would be the property of the merchant; and this trade would be profitable, Mr. Egede presumed.

Mr. Egede applied to the King of Denmark and the College of Missions to aid his project, but it was ten years before he succeeded in his application. His friends thought it was a very wild project in him to abandon his country, where he was living in comfort, and to venture himself and his family among savages.

Mr. Egede, however, believed that God requires of men not to love father and mother, or any other dear object, so much as they love God's service; and sometimes God's service is difficult and dangerous, and a man must give up his ease, and perVOL. III.-F

haps expose his life, when he does his Father's will for the good of other men.

Jesus Christ suffered all manner of evils that he might teach the commandments of God, and so did his followers, St. Paul and the other apostles. Mr. Egede thought it his duty to imitate their example; and his wife, who was, like her husband, a true Christian, and properly a heroine, thought it her duty to accompany him to the desert land whither he intended to go, and to help him there in teaching the poor Greenlanders.

After ten years of solicitation, this good man procured ships and necessary articles; in May, 1721, with his own family, and forty adventurers, he sailed for Greenland. After a passage of more than seven weeks they entered an inlet called Ball's River, this is on the west side of Greenland, in lat. 64°,—and there they landed. They soon built themselves a house of stone and boards on an island called Kangek. The boards were brought from Denmark.

The Greenlanders of this coast were pleased with the Europeans-the Kablunaks, as they called them; but they wondered why women and children had come among them. When they perceived the men building houses, and saw by their preparations that they intended to reside in their country, the natives seemed inclined to leave the place; but the Europeans made them a few presents, and the Greenlanders became reconciled to them.

Still they were afraid of Mr. Egede. Among the Greenlanders were certain impostors, called angekoks, who pretended to converse with spirits, to cure diseases, and to bring misfortunes upon